New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

He hadn't received a call at all. In truth, Alex had discreetly programmed his earpiece to flash like he was receiving a call right before following her into the shower.

He had done this to buy himself some time alone.

But he did have a call to make.

As the ringing echoed inside his head a few times, Alex hoped that who he was calling hadn't suddenly started playing New Eden, which would make him unreachable at night.

But the sound of the phone picking up made him smile.

"Who is this? How did you get this number?" came a gruff voice on the other side.

"I'm glad to see you haven't changed yet, Alfred," Alex said, stopping in front of the large windows overlooking the city.

"Alexander? I thought you were missing… When did you—"

"Yesterday. But it's not relevant to the reason for my calling. I need a favour," Alex interrupted him.

There was a pause, followed by a deep sigh.contemporary romance

"This better be good. I don't take lightly to people asking me favours," Alfred replied.

"I need a team on standby that can make legal arrests. I can't tell you where or why yet. But they will be necessary."

Alex could almost hear the frown form on Alfred's face after hearing his words.

"Why would y—nope. I don't want to know. I don't care. Tell me where they should stand by and be ready to pay up," Alfred answered before cutting the call.

Alex smirked as the call cut, imagining how Alfred must be annoyed. But he still needed the favour.

He couldn't legally make arrests, and what he was about to do would most certainly require some unless he killed whoever he caught, which he would rather avoid.

He texted Kary, who he knew would see them inside New Eden since he had already linked his new number to his account.

'It was Alfred. He heard I was back and asked to see me before I logged back into New Eden. It shouldn't take more than a few hours.'

Alex returned to the room, getting clothes and dressing, when he received her reply.

'Do you need me to log back out?'

'Nah. It's nothing like that. I'll be in as soon as I'm back home. Love you,' he replied.

Kary replied with, 'I love you too.'

Alex smiled lightly before exiting through his room balcony access and jumping off into the night sky.

Before gravity could assert itself over him, long white wings grew on his back, and he beat them vigorously, taking altitude.

Once he was above the tallest building in the city, Alex stopped and admired the lights below him.

"This view will always be stunning… But let's get busy," he mumbled.

Closing his eyes, Alex reached out to Geminae, borrowing his power. The divine entity willingly gave him access to it, still trying to build a trust bond between each other.

Alex felt the powers rush into him, and he instantly knew how to use them.

Focusing on his essence, he let the power spread slowly out of him until it covered the city. This felt like a light warmth to the people below him, like a pleasant memory passing through their minds.

Only the awakened people would know this wasn't normal, and Alex was banking on this.

He instantly felt many pulses of power in the city below, none powerful enough to reach him, and he grinned.

"Now that they know something more powerful than them is out there, let's see how they react."

Soon enough, the pulses he felt either retracted and shrunk or echoed once more, their location different.

Some were trying to find him, and others were already hiding.

But the one he wanted to find was one of the ones hiding.

Sadly for them, it was futile. He still sensed them like a dot of light in the darkness.

Alex looked into the downtown area, where all the business high-rises were, and frowned.

"What is he doing over there at this hour? Everything is closed…" he mumbled.

'Seems like I was right. He's into some dirty shit…' Alex thought, making his way toward downtown Montreal.

Meanwhile, Gabriel was sweating bullets in a black van in that same area.

"There it is again. That suffocating presence… I can't stay here…" he mumbled to himself.

"Hm? What was that, boss?" a man next to him asked.

This man was none other than Emerest, who was now out of his restaurant uniform and in some black form-fitting clothes.

"We have to call this off and leave. I felt something off, and we shouldn't be here when it gets here."

Emerest looked at him with knives in his eyes. With a swift movement of his feet, he was standing in Gabriel's face, and there was a knife against his ribs.

"Listen, Gabriel. I may call you boss, but don't delude yourself. You are still my bitch. I call the shots when we are on ops. So, sit the fuck down, and keep telling the team where to go and what to punch into those pads. Or I'll gut you like a fish."

At that moment, Emerest had gone from an unassuming man into a cold-blooded man with abilities he shouldn't possess.

And Emerest wasn't the only one to feel the change.

In the sky above their position, Alex halted his dive, frowning.

"That's strange. I could have sworn this was a normal person beside him. Why are they suddenly showing traces of mana?" Alex asked himself.

And someone else inside him was riling up.

'I can smell fear. Mmm. The sweet scent of absolute terror, of fear for your life. Get me some of that, man. I swear I'll behave if I can look at that person's life leave their eyes. Rhakhakha!' the imp begged in his mind.

Alex shut him up, using a trick he took from Geminae, as thick golden ropes tied around the imp and wrapped around his mouth.

'But he isn't wrong. This fear… It's intense. Whoever this is, he's scared for his life like never before…' Geminae said in Alex's mind.

'I can tell. And I think I know why…' Alex replied.

But he had no time to mess around. He needed to act.

Something was going down.

The building in front of him had just flashed, the faint sound of gunshots reaching his ears.

done.co