“Hello Caroline, how’s school treating you and Jason?” Jianmen picked up the phone as he waved Josephine Wong goodbye and started walking around in the job site with Agent Hall behind him.
“Pretty enlightening, and we just realized something. So we were wondering if you can help us with something?” Caroline answered: “By the way you are on speakerphone - Jason is right beside me.”
“Sure. Name it, I’ll see to it that it gets done. ”
“Look, I know you assigned us the case with Dr, Nguyen and by extension the thing with the Prime Royals Hotel, and the deserted hospital was also kinda Jason’s responsibility as well.” Caroline said: “But since we have some time at the academy, can you help us keep an eye on both of these places just in case things start to get weird or dangerous?”
“Yeah sure. No problem. I am helping Josephine Wong with some things so I may end up doing that anyway.” Jianmen smiled and said: “What brought this up? Did you take a class about necromancy? Looks like I’ll be learning from you when you come back.”
“It’s something called clustered malice.” Jason said: “Apparently, it’s a bunch of spirits bound together by negative emotions like dread and fear - it sounds an awful lot like what we encountered in the hotel and what happened at Clearwater Municipal Hospital. Have you encountered something like that?”
“Well, yeah. I’ve dealt with them in the past but not that often.” Jianmen stopped to look at a tall, classic style three storey house that somehow appeared to be not heavily damaged in the disaster. Agent Hall hesitated and seemed to be a little creeped out by this house, and Jianmen just picked up a rock from the ground and threw it at this house: “I can’t say I remember much about it though, when I was dealing with them I just threw them in a nearby sun, or if I want to be restrained and meticulous I’d have to concoct some custom poison - from what I understand they tend to be really unstable when getting close to fire, light, lightning or strong illusions.”
“Okay, that’s fire, light, lighting, these three I get. But why strong illusions?” Jason asked.
“Is it because the negative emotions are stimulated by the strong illusions and speed up into early implosion? ” Caroline asked.
“Something like that.” Jianmen watched the rock he threw crashed against the wall facing him, exploding on impact and destroying almost the entire wall: “But don’t try it just yet, strong illusions only work best when you’re combatting an instance of this ‘clustered malice’ that’s being controlled by someone. The stimulation could buff up its power for a short period if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Right, this reminds me - there might be someone controlling the clustered malice in the hotel and the hospital.” Jason immediately said: “The thing in the hotel - if it was a natural clustered malice there’s no reason that it won’t target every guest there. But it remained in control all this time. And the hospital, when I was in there, I got a sense that something gigantic was staring at me - it doesn’t sound like something an aimless thoughtless blob of angry spirits could do. ”
“Okay. Understood. I think some of the Division might have a contract job regarding the hospital that they want to commission someone to do. If they asked me I’d take a look.” Jianmen nodded: “And also, since you’re both in school, I’ll check on your friends and family for you if it worries you. Good on both of you to still keep those in mind.”
“That’s very kind of you. Thanks Boss. ” Caroline smiled and exchanged looks with Jason, who appeared really relieved to hear what Jianmen promised: “We’ll get back to class now. Just wanted to let you know.”
“Alright, no problem. Stay safe.”
When Jianmen hung up the phone, Agent Hall asked: “Mr. Yu, were those your students?”
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“Yes. They’re attending school.” Jianmen smiled and looked at the building, whose wall he just completely destroyed. Some kind of dark liquid seemed to be crawling up the interior of the house, carrying pieces of broken bricks, clay plates and other material in order to “rebuild” the wall.
“Which - which school?”
“I’d rather not say.” Jianmen chuckled: “You wanna come into the magical underworld as well Agent Hall?”
“I… I...” Agent Hall hesitated: “Yeah. But I am not sure if it’s possible. I’m not an experienced agent, I’ve only been in the Division for a little bit over a year. And I don’t really have a very impressive gift to climb faster ...”
“And your gift has to do with sound and hearing, right?” Jianmen asked.
“Yeah. How’d you know sir?” Agent Hall appeared to be more respectful, and even started using “sir”.
“Well, I just can tell.” Jianmen chuckled as he watched the wall get completely “rebuilt” by the dark liquid: “You know, I have this uh … ability, to know that when someone is talking about me, or trying to dig up information about me, or simply trying to understand me, like trying to hear what kind of sounds I make when I use my power.”
Agen Hall froze for a short moment then immediately bowed: “Oh my god. My apologies for my insolence!”
“No, no, it’s okay. It’s only natural.” Jianmen waved his hand: “Just a word of warning - this kind of ability - it’d be very useful in almost all scenarios, but also very dangerous. You keep practicing, but be careful. When the business here gets rowdy, that suit and the charm in your pocket won’t be able to help you if you’re not careful.”
“Understood.” Agent Hall wiped away a bit of sweat from his face.
“You have earplugs or something?”
“Yes, sir. Here.” Agent Hall reached into his pocket and took out a pair of metal earplugs.
“Standard issue ear protection from the Division, huh?” Jianmen grabbed the earplugs handed to him by Agent Hall: “It’s okay quality wise, but won’t be much help when we get down to business.” Some kind of shiny dirt appeared in Jianmen’s hands and covered the earplugs completely, then with a flash of some electric sparks, the dirt disappeared, and the metal earplugs seemed to be covered with some kind of light orange but mostly transparent coating.
“Thank you… ” Agent Hall took the earplugs back from Jianmen: “Should I put them on now?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna do some initial probing and dissecting before doing the cleanse full on.” Jianmen nodded: “Now follow me, if you feel too much pressure then call out to me.”