KINETIC

"Lady Nila, there are some gentlemen outside who claim they know you." The butler said.

"Let them in" Nila said as she and Rene both stood up. They gathered their things and walked towards the front door, arriving as the boys reached it from outside.

"Woah... This place is huge!" Cain said as he looked up at the ceiling with awe.

"Don't cause a scene. We don't want to disturb those that live here..." Clay tried to calm Cain down. He was afraid that they might get punished for being too loud.

"My father isn't the type of person to complain about something like that." Nila said as she and Rene entered the room from around a corner.

Rene stopped next to Leo and looked him in the eyes "I'm glad you're alright." She said with a sweet smile.

"Thank you, im glad you two made it here safely as well." Leo replied with a soft smile. He quickly changed tune though as he looked at Nila "We need somewhere private to talk, Clay has something to tell us all."

Nila took everyone to the same room she and Rene had been sitting in, she then had all the servants leave the room.

Everyone sat down on two couches opposite each other, the boys on one and the girls the other. Clay took out the piece of paper that he had crumpled into his pocket and placed it on the table.

"This document says that the group the masked belong to is called 'Umbra'. They are a cult that worships something they refer to as 'The Great Ones', the existence of which hasn't been confirmed. Apparently until a few weeks ago, they weren't a threat at all, but suddenly they started to gain massive amounts of power and their followers tripled. There are reports of confrontations with Umbra where hundreds of military forces died and ability users were seen fighting for Umbra." Clay explained at length.

"Umbra..." Leo mumbled "The ability users that were a part of Umbra... I think some of them are the ones that were kicked out of the academy for being too weak. I don't understand how they could have become powerful enough to mess with the military so quickly though..."

"Why do you think it's them?" Cain asked.

"Well there are only so many ability users alive. All of which are either at the academy right now or were kicked out. There may be a handful that hid from the military and never came to the academy at all, but I doubt they are enough to cause the damage this document is talking about."

"Also, it would be reasonable to assume they wouldn't be too happy with how the military kicked them out without giving them a chance to prove themselves after some training. They probably felt like they had been discarded, like they were nothing but trash." Leo tensed his fist slightly at this point.

He knew what it was like to feel that way and he hated that others were treated so badly. Even if it wasn't anything like what he had endured, it was still something that would have hurt them. That kind of treatment just didn't sit right with Leo.

"I agree. I think it's safe to assume that some of them would have joined Umbra. We've even seen an ability user from Umbra when John was taken. They used an ability that allowed them to vanish, most likely teleportation." Nila said.

"This is good to know but none of it helps us find John. Does it say anything about where they are, maybe they have a base set up somewhere?" Cain asked while looking at Clay who had picked up the document.

"The military believes they are based near Grove village. They have had multiple reports of masked people entering the village in the past two weeks." Clay read the important information while summarizing it.

Leo was surprised when he heard Clay say Grove village, It was the same village Leo had saved from bandits and he had been arrested in.

"I was there about a month ago and I never saw anyone wearing a mask resembling Umbra." Leo stated.

"The first report is from just under two weeks ago, so it doesn't surprise me. Another report came in just 2 days ago about a masked man speaking with the chief of the village." Clay said.

"Then if we hurry we should be able to find some cultists still in or near the village. If not, we will ask the village chief to tell us what he knows and go from there." Nila said.

It wasn't long before the group had left the mansion and started their journey to Grove village, it would take them an entire week to get there so they prepared for a long journey.

***

Inside a dark cave, there was a figure kneeling in front of a stone altar in the middle of an open area. There were several people in red robes gathered all around the altar, standing silently and waiting.

A man stood next to the kneeling figure and spoke "Place your hand on the altar and the truth will be revealed to you." The man said.

The figure kneeling on the ground was John. He had been brought to this place because the pale man next to him, who he had come to know as Silas, claimed he would be shown why Leo was a threat to the world.

John hesitated for a moment, wondering if he could really trust Silas. 'They have done nothing to harm me since I arrived here... I don't want to believe it, but I have to find out if they are telling the truth.'

John reached out and placed his hand on the Alter. For a moment nothing happened and John thought he had done something wrong. Then his vision blackened and a flash of red appeared in front of him.

John was now floating in the air and all around him he could see nothing but an endless cloud of red and black fog swirling together.

Out from the fog, the silhouette of 8 figures could be seen surrounding John. Some of them appeared to be human like in shape, while others were shapes that John couldn't make out.

From one of the humanoid looking figures a deep and booming voice erupted.

"Why have you come, human?"

John was frightened by the situation and stuttered when he tried to answer.

"I-I want to know if L-Leo will really d-destroy the world..." He finally said.

The figure waved their hand and John's vision changed again. He was now standing in the middle of a desert with a red sky. The ground was littered with bodies and covered in an ankle deep pool of blood.

A cracked moon that had been broken into several pieces was floating in the sky. A mountain of corpses had collected just ahead of John, and standing on top was a figure dressed in all black.

His body was covered in blood and his hands were glowing blue. At his feet, John could see the bodies of all his friends. Clay, Cain and Rene. The figure turned to face John and a giant smile appeared on his face.

The figure was easily recognized to be Leo and with a smile on his face he lifted his hand and the moon began glowing a bright blue as it began to move.

"This is the end." Leo said.

Then every piece of the moon came crashing down and slammed into the planet. A wave of force and heat spread over everything, incinerating the bodies instantly and leaving nothing but ashes behind.

As the wave hit John, the last thing he saw was the smile on Leo's face as the planet shattered and burned.