"That won’t be necessary, although it may be beneficial to earn a quick buck or two early on, having an abundance of anything can lead to becoming complacent. As it stands, I have no reason to join up with a secondary party, as I am doing just fine on my own…however, it’s quite bold of you to believe I have any need for your Organization so early on." Narrowing my eyes as I took another sip of particle water, I continued.
"I prefer my chatting partners to be more straightforward, young pony; this will be your only warning: if you want to know something, then ask it directly; that is how this little game goes, and I suspect you have been briefed that it will work against you more than help you by trying to play mind games with me."
Direct and to the point, I issued the same warning I had given every last person I had been in this situation with. Generally, it would mean the next question the opposition asks would be their last, and from how Fredrick stiffened, he too got the memo; thus, he thought carefully about his next question.
"We’ve been keeping careful tabs on the Ranking Boards, but your name hasn’t come up on it…or if it has, we don’t know what alias you are using."
’Shit…curse me and my big mouth, I just haddd~ to put pressure on him, now if he straight up asks about Nexus, I will have to answer it without falsity.’ Groaning mentally as I had backed myself inadvertently into a corner, I motioned for Fredrick to continue speaking.
"I am sure you have noticed, but an unknown Ranker is taking the top of the chart; they go by the name Nexus. While many people have used such a name or variations of said name, not one Hero or Villain has ever shown the potential to reach such heights…and all our research has come up fruitless." Mimicking my action of taking a sip of water, Fredrick placed his glass down and asked his next question.
"Do you have any information about this Nexus person? Even the slightest detail would be helpful in our search."
Knowing I had to play this carefully or else, things could go sideways, I tredded lightly, not telling any lies, but not giving away the full truth either.
"Hm…Nexus, indeed, I have some leads about their identity; they already caught my attention, and I even built a profile around them based on some clues I’ve come across here and there."
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"They are young, somewhere between the ages of 6 and 10 years old, probably from a middle-class family, yet not a large one. I have stumbled into a situation or two that was their doing, one of which resulted in a massive amount of Myriad Race bloodshed on an island off the north shore of Edinburgh, Scotland."
Glancing up from the tray of treats I had laid out, I noticed Fredrick hanging on my every word as if committing it to memory.
"From the clues left behind by that battle, I can say this… Nexus is adept at hand-to-hand combat as they were able to defeat hundreds of Fae, not only younglings but also older Elders who should have been experienced in warfare."
"This leads me to believe they either have a Physical Offense Talent or extremely high Physical Stats; in either case, they are light on their feet and capable of dealing instant kill blows with ease and in abundance."
"But more importantly, they don’t shy away from a fight and have a solid head on their shoulders because apart from the damage done to the terrain, Nexus was smart enough to leave behind not an ounce or speck of Fae blood."
"Using the Origin Timeline Threat scale and adjusting it for our current standards, I would put them at an S, potentially S+ Rank Threat. Unless you have a full force of combative with a power level of Mid-Alpha Rank at the minimum, I doubt it will be easy to take them down, even if caught unaware." Calmly sipping my Particle water, I watched Fredrick digest the information before realizing it was his turn to share something, as that was how the game was played; the only question was what he could offer up…
"FPIT, Fixed points in time, we have been able to find one so far, and based on an algorithm my older sister wrote, we may have a way of figuring out future events."
"Oh….that’s quite interesting and helpful. Do go on." I said with a smile under my mask because this was the first bit of Valuable information he was offering up.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t in the memories I had spied on, which could only mean one thing: Stillwater, or more so, Erik Colt, had devised a method to stop me from gathering every bit of knowledge in his children’s or Operatives’ minds.
It wasn’t impossible, and frankly, I wasn’t too surprised, as there had been a few methods that popped up from time to time that prevented me from Scrying on people’s minds, but I generally was able to overcome them with a little time or a Rank-up.
The fact of the matter was, if Stillwater had a way to stop me from reading the depths of their people’s minds, odds were it only worked so long as I was in the Alpha-Rank.
"Our research and development team has been hard at work for years trying to get answers for certain questions from Arkadia, and we were able to learn what makes an FPIT Event important."
"At its core, the event needs to change the general population’s way of thinking. While I am sure there have been several that we missed, the first one our Organization came in contact with was in 1996, at the Atlanta Summer Olympics."
"The bombing…it altered people’s mentality about congregating in a large crowd as now they could be a potential target in doing so…. hm, but that really shouldn’t have been a Fixed Point In time, as realistically there are several worse incidents that occurred in the late 2000s which made people hesitant to go in crowds." Adding my own thoughts to the mix, I nodded in understanding while Fredrick expanded further.