'Why?! Why is this happening to me?!' Ely Otta thought exasperatingly to herself; her panicked mind completely filled to the brim with frustration and fear, as her small foot slammed even harder against the gas pedal of the "John Deer" tractor she had been forced into hijacking. Drowning on the roar of her own vehicle's engine, was the cacophony of motorcycle motors roaring from a one-hundred and eighty degree behind her; the tractor's rear view mirrors revealing to her a sudden motor accident behind her, which sent two of the sheep-headed choujin who had been hot on her tail flying forty feet upward— their motorcycles turned into hunks of scrap metal, as the car they had crashed into accidentally swerved directly into another one of their fellow bikers.
With the smell of hot oil fading away in the air the further she drove down the highway, and away from the carnage taking place behind her, all Ely could think to herself was what could have happened if her plane never went up in smoke. 'By now, I woulda been done with the fair— I woulda, shoulda been gettin' a massage at the inn… So… WHY'M I RACIN' AROUND TOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, RIDIN' IN A TRACTOR?!' Ely thought with outrage, as she scowled furiously while counting the sheer number of motorcyclists who were pursuing her, just from her mirrors alone.
'An' who the heck are these fellas?! An' why're making a racket this late?! All of that vrooming…!' Ely wondered to herself, just before her eyes flicker forward toward the road ahead of her. Seeing the taillights of a diesel truck, the petite teenager slowed down and waited until the very last second to suddenly speed up again— driving in front of it with her pursuers on her tail, before swerving inches in front of the truck's reinforced bumper, and remained brazen as its driver laid the horn down on her. Causing a wipe out on the road that led to the large diesel truck spinning out of control, Ely looked back into the rear view mirror to glance at her handiwork.
With the truck tipping over and skidding several meters across the highway until it came to a halt— several motorists collided into the large chrome tank that it had been pulling, before suddenly the tank burst open. 'I dunno if these "doo-doos" are in league with that white-eyed fella, but…' Ely's thoughts trailed off, as she watched the white liquid from within the busted tank spill out like a small tidal wave— taking out several more sheep-heads, before slicking the roads and causing even more accidents. 'They're neighborhood nuisances, that's for sure! An' they suck at drivin' for guys who ride motorcycles!'
"These doo-doos wouldn't even make good manure…!" Ely muttered angrily with her eyes widening with rage in them— the young farmer girl getting riled up even more than she had been, as all fear left her small body. Gripping the steering wheel, the teenage girl bit down hard on her own bottom lip, as she looked over to one section stone divider that was only made up of plywood and caution tape— a dangerous thought entering her pissed off mind, as she pushed the pedal of the tractor hard all the way to the floor.
'Get a load of my tractor driving skills,' Ely thought manically to herself, as she began to smile menacingly even as she crashed straight through the makeshift repair of the highway's stone divider— her stolen tractor getting massive air, as she and her pursuers soared over the construction site of where the civic center had at one time been. Grunting in pain as she jolted in her seat when the tractor landed hard on all of its wheels, Ely paid no mind to sounds of motorcycles crashing onto grounds of the nearby construction site behind her, as she immediately started to drive down the closed off windy road that would shoot her back into city street— with the only thing separating her being chain link barricade.
"TIME TO PLOW AHEAD!" Ely roared from her tiny lungs, as she white knuckled it through the construction site's locked entrance— crashing her roughed up tractor through its chain link gate, all the while hearing the incoming sounds of motorcycle motors roaring beneath the echoes of what she knew to be a drag racing car.
With no street lights operating along the path of the winding road that had been paved at a decline, Chandra saw the rest of his involuntary recruits wiping out on their motorcycles; the lucky ones were the ones who fell off their rides, and skidded painfully on the road and side of the rocky hill that the civic center had been built on top of, while the less fortunate sheep-heads met their "early retirements" when their motorcycles hit the steel barrier along the winding road, and fell several hundred feet off the cliff's edge.
With more sheep-heads on their way to provide reinforcements, Chandra who had been chasing Ely with a rice-burner felt just as fired up as she was, as he was moments away from driving around the last curve in the winding road. "Think you can give me the slip?! I have four wheel drive… FASTER THAN YOUR HUNK OF JUN-?!" Unfortunately for the white-eyed choujin, not only was the stereo in his stolen vehicle too loud for him to hear anything outside of his own thoughts, but his road rage had caused him to run straight through the traffic light that was at the bottom of the winding road— his car getting completely crushed flat by a semi truck that had "DRIVING LIFE" and "WE LOVE SAFETY" decaled on their truck.
Through her rear view mirror, Ely rejoiced as she saw Chandra's limp body being launched out through the shattered front windshield— the car crashing having been devastating enough to have caused his shoes to fly off from his feet, while he was still in mid-air. "YEAH! SERVES YOU RIGHT— WITH A CHERRY ON TOP!!" Ely shouted with a large, vindictive smile spread across her sweat-covered face— quietly adding under her breath "enjoy them in the afterlife", and laughing in victory as she accidentally drove straight through a steel barrier. Her laugh quickly escaped into a panicked scream, the moment she realized that she had gotten launched out of the tractor, and was now free falling over two hundred feet down into what looked to be a hydroelectric power plant down below.
With only the massive stone wall that had been built over the cliff side to help break her fall, Ely started to flap her arms wildly like a bird— successfully managing to avoid getting crushed by her own stolen tractor, and landing her feet down on the sharp incline just long enough to run on it for a few seconds. Quickly losing her balance and proceeding to tumble down the wall, Ely could feel her bones and tendons fracturing the entire way down, up until she crashed straight through the surface of one of the plant's water reserves.
Although she was in an extreme amount of pain, there was no hesitation in the way Ely swam back up to the surface before pulling herself onto the ledge of a stone walkway that bordered the body of water she had landed in. Feeling an uncomfortable hot sensation bubbling up within her unnaturally inflamed left hand, Ely didn't have time to worry about her own health as her widened eyes immediately flicked up to where the rest of the motorcycle gang was free falling. Unlike her, none of them were going to land anywhere remotely near the water reserves; instead, what awaited the sheep-heads was the concrete pavement of the plant's vacant parking lot.
Perhaps it was the moment of realization that she was about to watch a gorey scene unfold before her, or maybe it was her conscious telling her that the motorcyclists were only but public nuisances that didn't deserve such karma, but all Ely knew in that moment was that she couldn't allow herself just to watch any longer. Screaming out for them to not die, the anxious farm girl's panicked eyes turned their attention to her outstretched left hand, and took immediate notice of the black smoke that was beginning to leak out from her fingertips.
There was no time for Ely to think; there was only time for her to act. Grabbing the nearest sharp object she could find— which happened to be a piece of an engine from her destroyed tractor that laid around the stone walkway in pieces— the brave farm girl proceeded to stab the sharp end of the debris straight into her palm. Howling in agony as white-hot pain radiated throughout her palm, and down her forearm, Ely used her good hand to grab a hold of her left wrist— using the compressed-build up of black smoke she had seen Chandra use to create a powerful gust of air that she aimed at the seemingly doomed sheep-heads.
Having no idea that her plan would even work, Ely's gamble paid off when she noticed the bodies of the motorcyclists lying unconscious across the nearby parking lot— all of which from what she could tell were breathing, while being absent of blood splatters or missing limbs. Feeling relieved of what she was able to accomplish within seconds, it was about that time when the adrenaline that had been keeping the farmer girl going began to subside from her broken body— causing her to flop forward face first onto the large stone walkway, as she heard a familiar and unwelcomed laughter coming from the top of the water reserves' lined-up pump-dans; all of which ran along the walkway she had collapsed on.
"And there it is… That! Right there! That's what I wanted to see!" Ely heard Chandra shouting in a maniacal voice, as she pushed past her injuries to slowly pick herself up off of the ground in time to see a cloud of swirling black smoke beginning to solidify on top of a giant twenty-foot tall fan she had heard him gloating on. "That quick judgment, that tough resolve…!' Chandra mused approvingly, as his body began to materialize from the solidified silhouette of black smoke. "And most of all, that persistence! A human perfectly equipped with the makings of a choujin! Though, your inanity is a matter of… Slight concern."
Drenched in water— and still bleeding out from the middle of her left palm— Ely was panting painfully for breath as she looked up at Chandra while muttering under her breath, "C… Choujin…?"
"Yes, precisely! More specifically, I'm what the tabloids are referring to as "A Smoke Choujin"— though, I prefer to go by "Chandra Hume", since who the hell would call themselves that?!" Chandra scoffed with a smug grin across his sleazy face, as he descended down from where he had been standing toward where Ely was still struggling to get up from the floor— his tall, slender body floating down gently as a balloon the entire way. "Behold, you're in the presence of a celebrity now," Chandra boasted sarcastically, before reaching into his suit pocket to pull out a cut-out cover of that afternoon's newest released magazine— showing Ely the photographed photo of the black smoke engulfed airplane that they had both been on earlier that day.
"This… This is your power now, kid. I guess the only question that still stands is whether or not you were infected with my abilities, or if me burning your face was the catalyst that you needed to transform into a choujin— to think, this all happened on my first attempt," Chandra mused with an intrigued look on his sharp-facial features, as he crumbled up the cover page before tossing it aside. "Well anyway… Consider what happened in the stratosphere as nothing more than a test! And you, my annoying little friend, have PASSED!"
"W… Wha'…?" Ely muttered out with an utterly confused and disgusted tone in her voice, before suddenly being pulled up onto her feet by Chandra, who proceeded to fix her soaked hair the best he could.
"I said you passed, dumbass! I'll teach you everything there is to know about choujin! Trust me, I won't do you any wrong!" Chandra gloated enthusiastically, as he stared back at who he was fully prepared to take on as his student. "Now listen closely, cause I don't like to repeat myself… In order to use this glorious power-"
"-You gotta be kidding me…" Ely interrupted Chandra in a low voice— cutting him off, and causing him to glare at her with a confused look in his white eyes, as the farmer girl locked eyes with him with her small busted hands curling into shaking fists. "You won't do me wrong…? What kind of self-delusional person says that, after doin' the things ya did," Ely asked mockingly with anger in her exhausted voice, as she shook her head at Chandra before screaming at him, "ALL YA BEEN DOIN' IS WRONG!"
Not approving at all of the farmer girl's attitude, Chandra's blood was beginning to figuratively and literally boil black as he began gritting his molars in anger. "I'm delusional, am I?! And what about you?! Don't pretend like you and that old hag have been buddy-buddy for as long as she's been around— if you didn't force my hand, then none of this would have happened!" Chandra shouted back, while pointing an accusing finger toward her. "That plane would have touched Musutafu's airway, and all of those people would have been fine! This… This could have happened so much differently: you would have ended up with my glorious powers either way; the only difference would be that I could have had my pick of the litter, instead of whoever the hell was nearest to me!"
Outraged at what she was hearing, Ely began to violently shake before letting out a defiant scream as she stepped forward before shoving Chandra back in anger— causing him to stumble back, as she roared hatefully at him, "OH YEAH?! WELL THEN KEEP YER' CRAPPY POWERS— I DON' WAN' EM!"
And in that moment, whatever patience Chandra had left in his tall body had burned away inside of him. "Crappy…? My power is "crappy", you say…?" The white-eyed choujin muttered with his face growing red, before suddenly closing the distance between him and Ely— his violently shaking hand wrapping around the farmer girl's throat, as he picked her up with one arm. "MY POWER IS CRAPPY, HUH?! HOW THIS FOR "CRAPPY", YOU DIRTY LITTLE SHIT?!" Chandra screamed on the top of his lungs, before sprinting over to the closest pump-unit to slam Ely's head against the side of its steel chassis.
Slamming the four-foot tall repeatedly against the large metal frame of the giant water pump, Chandra eventually stopped assaulting Ely when he noticed her blood beginning to smear on the spot where the back of her head had been hitting. "You're quite fortunate that you're my student… Since killing you would be counterproductive, allow me to exercise my right as your "teacher", and give you a lesson on what happens to those who slight me," Chandra growled with his teeth bared at her, as he did everything in his power to hold back on murdering her as he pressed her body up against the bloodied chassis of the water pump.
"Lesson one… AN EYE FOR AN EYE!" Chandra shrieked out in a maddened rage, before immediately using his free hand to press his palm against Ely's right eye— shooting scolding black smoke directly on it, and causing the inside of her optic orange to begin boiling from the inside-out.
Going through shock and unable to let out a single breath, while getting tortured and the inside of her right eye socket hollowed out by Chandra's smoke, all Ely's could do to escape from her agonizing pain was to flee into the safety of her mind— thinking back to when she had been on the airplane, and what the old lady had asked what she wanted. 'Drones an' a hoop greenhouse… A ginormous house! A huge dog! Paying this folks back for the "Roller Boy Yay-Yay," an the tractor! Oh! A handsome, golden locks husband! An' nine kids!'
'…'
'… But most of all, Grandpapy… Right now, all I wanna do is to teach this cruel fella a lesson he won't forget either,' Ely prayed to her grandfather, as it became harder and harder for her to stay awake, as she started to lose feeling in the left-side of her body.
Despite what his intentions had been, Chandra wasn't letting up on Ely's punishment, and was moments away from having his black flames burn a hole through the back of her charred eye socket when all of a sudden he felt a tremor in the concrete ground beneath him. That fraction of a second that he noticed something was off was all Chandra had to react, before suddenly a jagged and ebony-black pillar erupted from directly underneath him— its metal tip piercing through his groin and out through his chest.
Skewered like a shishkebab while being stabbed about forty feet in the air, it never dawned on Chandra that both of his arms had been severed from the elbows down, as he shook violently in writhing pain— even more so, when less than a second later his fatally wounded body was hit with a ball of volatile electricity, that fried every nerve in the choujin's body.
Due to the concussion she was experiencing when she fell on to her back with a thud, Ely had been spared the gruesome view by the time her bluggoe and burned body was swept up. Not being able to process the speed in which she had been carried off to, the farmer girl was left feeling dazed and confused by the time she realized that she was being lowered flat down high above the wall overlooking the hydroelectric power plant, two hundred feet down below the rooftop she was now laying on.
'How did I end up back here…? My head hurts a lot, ouch… Ngh… W-Where in the world is that- W-WHO THE HECK IS HE?!?' Ely's concussed mind thought in a bewildered panic, as she managed to catch a glimpse of a tall pale-skinned man with white hair standing over her briefly, before disappearing within less than a blink of an eye. Writhing in a dull-aching pain that was radiating throughout her beaten and broken body, hyperventilating with tears flowing down from the side of bloodied face that wasn't scorched, and with shivering body becoming number and number by the second, it didn't take long for Ely to begin succumbing to shock from her injuries— falling into deep unconsciousness, as she laid limply on her side.
Screaming in agony, the moment he was alone was when Chandra had the clarity to use his power to puff himself out into a cloud of black smoke. Putting himself back together, along with his severed arms that had been sliced clean off of him, the smoke choujin managed to gain his second wind through "raising", and had fully intended on retreating before striking back at whoever had the audacity of almost taking his life.
'Bastard! I'm gonna find whoever did this! And when I do, I'm going to-!?' Unable to even complete his thought, Chandra's cloud of black smoke was struck by another bolt of yellow lightning from high above the cliffside; having no feasible time to react, as every electron within his gas-state became active— creating a magnetic charge within him. In excruciating pain and unable to concentrate on keeping his form, the black cloud immediately solidified and thus Chandra was once again in one-piece; laying on his hands and knees beside the water reserve, as all of sudden the air from his lungs vacated itself from his body.
In that moment, all the rage that had been bubbling inside of him disappeared, and in its place was true despair; the hairs on his skin standing up, his stomach sinking and churching as he felt the blood in his body turning into ice. 'Wh… What the hell is going on here…? W-Why…? Why am I…? Why am I scared…? This feeling… This can't…' Chandra's confused and panicked mind thought to itself, before completely seizing up as he craned his neck up to be met with the sight of death itself.
Standing tall in his white trench coat— the light of the moon above reflecting into the lenses of his thin eyeglasses— was none other than the fabled "White Reaper" himself: Kishou Arima. Holding an ebony-black lance in his right hand, and an intricate platinum-white rapier in his left, the six-foot tall man with snow-white hair and eyes as gray as the grave itself looked down upon Chandra with indifference.
Every choujin who knew of Yamato Mori knew who Arima was— including Chadara. The only accounts the choujins had about the infamous White Reaper were from those who had the ability to surrender to him, and those who were fortunate enough to be spared by him. His cold presence alone sucked the hope out of those who were damned to face him in battle; there was no "what if" or "maybe", there was only the absolution of death. Facing him now, with only a few meters separating the two, Chandra finally understood what it truly meant to experience true, unfiltered fear.
Every fiber of his being didn't want to invoke Arima's wraith, and being too terrorized to even attempt an escape from the choujin who was known to be always lightyears ahead of his opponent, with what little composure Chandra still had in him he slowly raised his hands up into the air; sitting up on his knees, he began to tremble submissively as Arima slowly approached him with his gray eyes never looking away from his white-eyed gaze of despair. "H… Hey… I-I don't want any trouble, man— alright…?! I-I ain't do anything dumb; I-I give up, okay?! I-I GIVE UP! I GIVE UP!" Chandra screamed in a whimpering voice; any and all arrogance from his ego completely destroyed, as he watched Arima slowly raise the tip of his black lance up to his face.
With the sharpened edge of the White Reaper's terrifying weapon of destruction a mere few centimeters from puncturing his pupil, Chandra wanted nothing more in that moment than to curl up into a ball and close his eyelids shut— to have Arima disappear, and to never have to see him in the flesh every again for the rest of his life. And for better or for worse, Chandra's wish was partially granted after he felt the man's icy cold hand grab onto his shoulder.
In less than a microsecond, Chandra had disappeared where he had been kneeling and begging for his life— leaving only Arima alone in the vacant hydroelectric plant with the unconscious motorists being his only company. Taking in a deep breath before letting out an elongated sigh, Arima collected his thoughts before seemingly blinking out of existence— leaving nothing in his wake, except for the chilling tension of death itself that hung around as a memento to where he had been.