Something Strange... [Missions C]

Janus came out looking a lot better, but the pants she had weren't hers. They were definitely someone else, she guessed she had bled too much on the other ones. Her leg was pretty much fine, it seemed like her bigger issue had been the compounding psychological damage caused by whatever was going on with her divination. The lead back to her trying to rethink the entire couple of days. Which more or less seemed like she had been toyed with.

Next to her hospital bed there was a single black orchid and with it a letter. It had her name on it, in blocked lettering almost like a forgotten calligraphy. She opened it only to read it before dropping it. Janus turned in a bunch of directions as she searched the futures for nothing. She couldn't get more than a second ahead with the number of people around the hospital.

The note on the ground simply stated, I've left you a gift, do deal with it before it hits the hospital. Janus looked around and felt the gloom again as she saw combat in her near future as a masked avian hurtled towards the building, directly at her.

All she could think as she sighed and ran towards the window was that all of this was really unfair.

The window shattered as Janus' coat billowed behind her and music started playing really loudly. She was diving headfirst out a... what she guessed was a third story window in an attempt to stop the masked monster. She had no weapon, and no way to do anything about it so she was now flying through the air realizing that this idea was terrible. Though, she was a diviner and she knew this part was okay, what came next probably wasn't going to be. The young woman managed to grab a hold of the body of the flying monster and the weight ratio change, coupled with the loss of a minor amount of mobility one one wing sent it careening off in another direction towards the parking lot outside the hospital.

Janus and the monster slammed down into a car, the diviner managing to get the monster under her, though just barely, and roll from the hood of the car as she screamed in pain. Her vision went white for a second and she realized, this wasn't working and started searching for a future where she managed to do something, anything to put up a fight as the avian screamed at her.

Janus, wanted a really big gun at that moment, but she didn't get one, instead she found a future where the black robed Janus appeared again and she followed it forward, the image of herself bursting out of her body to rush at the monster. The image moved to the avian, which flapped its wings to push backwards then the black robed Janus stopped and swung where the bird had been.

That mere second, taught Janus more about what the power she had used to hurt the other masked monsters was. She had learned that the power seemed to only come out when she looked at a future where it did come out. The other point was, that its actions, seemed predetermined, like following a set of railroad tracks. Next, the power could hurt the monsters, and they feared that it could which meant it could be used to attack. Which was useful, apparently Janus did have a weapon, just a very, confusing one. The final thing it taught her was that the weapon the fake Janus had, was the weapon it attacked with. So, the black robed Janus swung a sword, another Janus shot things, another swiped with claws.

She needed that one, the one with claws. Janus sifted through futures as she tried to scramble away from the bird as it used its talons to rake across a car Janus had slid over with a grinding crunch. She finally found the future where a version of herself with a mask and claws rushed at the avian, and with an effort of will, she choose that future.

Janus kept running as the masked monster Janus lept out of her body and turned to strike at the bird, severing its wing and part of it's mask and Janus fell to the ground panting, with a newfound power and the growing realization she had been manipulated.

That mere second, taught Janus more about what the power she had used to hurt the other masked monsters was. She had learned that the power seemed to only come out when she looked at a future where it did come out. The other point was, that its actions, seemed predetermined, like following a set of railroad tracks. Next, the power could hurt the monsters, and they feared that it could which meant it could be used to attack. Which was useful, apparently Janus did have a weapon, just a very, confusing one. The final thing it taught her was that the weapon the fake Janus had, was the weapon it attacked with. So, the black robed Janus swung a sword, another Janus shot things, another swiped with claws.

She needed that one, the one with claws. Janus sifted through futures as she tried to scramble away from the bird as it used its talons to rake across a car Janus had slid over with a grinding crunch. She finally found the future where a version of herself with a mask and claws rushed at the avian, and with an effort of will, she choose that future.

Janus kept running as the masked monster Janus lept out of her body and turned to strike at the bird, severing its wing and part of it's mask and Janus fell to the ground panting, with a newfound power and the growing realization she had been manipulated.

Spoiler:

Janus realized how far she had run, which was literally blocks a few moments later. She stopped to catch her breath and she was pretty sure everything had just caught up to her in seconds. It was all real, which meant she wasn't crazy and it meant everything was worse off than before and someone was manipulating her for some unknown reason. For the first time in her life, Janus wanted a drink.

She rubbed her face and headed down the street towards the ramen place she had been a few days before, looking at her phone and realizing she had lost another day to the hospital visit. She looked around once she got to the ramen place and realized the old man wasn't there, which was odd. He was always tending his little place and it looked like he had opened.

Janus found herself wandering around looking for some signs of anything from the old man. Then she realized the street wasn't nearly as packed as it had been previously. It was like people were avoiding it, and as the feelings of gloom and despair creeped along her spine, making her hair stand on end, she realized that something was very wrong with the picture. Janus was starting to get used to this, whoever had done all of this had gone through a lot of trouble to make sure she was always effectively in the right place to be a hero at the right time.

That, made her stop and think. There was now no way any of this was coincidence. She looked around and noticed a man walking awkwardly up the street so she started walking towards him, pulling out her phone to look for music to take her mind off things. Though the closer she got, the more he looked, just wrong. He was wearing a large hat, and listing lazily each way as he stumbled forwards. As Janus moved closer, she realized it wasn't a hat at all, it was a moving blob, closer still would reveal a jelly looking thing with a mask on top of the man's head.

Janus looked to the future and realized the man had no free will, and she guessed it was because of the thing on his head. That meant she had to get rid of it somehow, or at least she got that far in her thoughts when her divination pinged more people moving like zombies towards her. She didn't want to be in a zombie appocolypse, that just seemed in bad taste. Which unfortunately, made her waste too much time thinking and the man near her took a swing at her.

It didn't do, anything. Which was weird to Janus because the man was larger than her, maybe the dimensional things had done something to her, maybe that's why she was faster, and stronger now. It had to be, like a different view of the world as she looked a the other humans closing in around her. Janus was happy that for once there wast nothing with free will near her and she started searching futures for another Janus to attack these things.

She found one, equipped with a compound bow, not seeing the one with the gun again so she summoned the other Janus and watched it fire at a specified target. The jelly dissipated from the top of the man's head and he fell limply to the ground. A quick check of his weak pulse revealed he was alive, but weakened.

Janus spent the better part of thirty minutes running around and finding jelly infested humans and then using them as practice to summon other Janus' to attack. Though she was scared at first of hurting them, the slow movements made it much easier to deal with, and she could feel like she was getting something done while learning something else. Which in her mind, was a good set of bonus options for the Diviner. She saved as many as ten humans before she realized, she hadn't thought to ask the most important question.

How were there so many of them, she had not yet seen a number of masked monsters that looked the same to this extent, and she definitely hadn't seen them have the same powers so this was something new. That or she was being manipulated again, but the feeling of power slammed against her like a whirlwind and Janus understood, she hadn't met whatever it was that obviously was the actual thing controlling them.

Spoiler:

Janus didn't realize she had made that big of a mistake until it was glaring at her from behind a large gelatous form with a small group of other jellies around it. She then noticed, she had been surrounded while she was helping humans and now the big bad had flanked her. Luckily, now that she was much stronger and faster, there were more options than run into the others and she jumped up to a nearby railing and bolted across it before leaping past the jellies.

She thought she had gotten by scott-free when she realized that there was one of the little suckers on her arm. Her arm felt sluggish as she ran and she had to grab the thing and use almost all of her muscles to toss it away as the others began to converge on her. Janus was used to divination in times like these but the limited options came from most likely the big jelly.

Janus realized she was right quickly, as the futures shifted into place, when she moved, the bigger one would counter in any number of ways using the smaller jellies to surround and hit her with the draining thing they did once they latched on. Which meant she was going to have to go through it to get out of here. She tried to look for an easy solution, like summoning another Janus and it being over quickly and she was mistaken about how little damage she did to the thing. Well, how much damage the other her's did to the thing.

Janus had to come up with a new plan and fast, but decided it wasn't bad to buy time. She continued throwing useless clones that attacked weakly at the large masked Jelly and did little more than jiggle the form of the creature. She wasn't really focused on any part of it, she was just backing up while she sent the fakes.

It became clear to Janus that this was accomplishing what the little boy shot at, nothing, so she decided to change strategies.

Janus needed to figure out if the monster had a weakness or something so she went future looking for any sign that she could hurt it. She found a few futures, but she couldn't focus on them as she dodged another pair of jellies by contorting her torso in a way she wasn't sure was healthy for a number of reasons. Janus spat to herself and looked towards the larger Jelly as she kept trying not to panic and come up with a solution. Janus kind of hoped she'd be able to do something easy like walk out the front door when necessary, but it doesn't seem anything was going to work.

So when divination fails, use reasoning. Janus tried to remember when she had first seen a masked monster fight a black robe, the black robe had won. She had beaten some and the others had fled, which meant there was a weakness, she just had to figure it out before the monster killed her. As she thought that another jelly attached to her leg and she had to kick the thing against a wall before it let go, slowing her pace due to damage and the draining effect.

Janus looked at the small jelly and grabbed it by the mask and crushed it. The thing dissipated and Janus realized that she as a complete moron sometimes. "Hit the mask." She said out loud and then tried to get away from another set of smaller jellies getting closer to her. The large one must not have cared that she figured it out or could not understand her, which was a good thing for Janus. The masked monster screamed as it swung its large tentacles at Janus and Janus sent a fake version of herself to deflect one of them. It, didn't and instead Janus found herself hammered into a wall. Pain surged up her leg and arm as she grunted and she tried to focus on her power, getting nowhere before simply trying to find a future where she didn't get beat like a drum. Another Janus appeared, this time with what looked like a massive punk rocker look and hair waved over. She didn't like the look, but it wasn't hard to tell it was her.

This Janus rushed the monster and swung a bass at it like a hammer, smashing the monster's mask and cracking it as it screamed loudly and vanished through some kind of odd gateway. Janus welcomed the reprieve as she slumped against the building, getting really tired of getting hurt.

Spoiler:

A few days later Janus was done healing up and she found herself sitting at the entrance to her hotel and hot springs looking out over Naruki from the side of the building. She sighed to herself as she looked at her coat and spent most of her time going over the past week. Janus first took stock of the number of times she almost died, how she had helped people and the fact that someone had been manipulating her into doing it.

She took a deep breath and waited for a customer or something, that way she could take her mind off all that and her divination picked up a new arrival who was going to walk through the door in exactly two minutes and thirty five seconds. Which gave her enough time to head into the kitchen and grab a small energy bar.

The snake oil salesman that had been following her around walked into the front door as Janus finished the energy bar and tossed the wrapper into the garbage. She didn't look up from the lobby reception, she didn't feel like she needed too, she already knew what she was going to ask and how he was going to answer. She still did it, because she still couldn't believe he was telling the truth for one reason or another. So, the diviner spent the better part of thirty minutes grilling the snake oil salesman for if he understood how he was manipulating her or how he had done it.

At one point, she even wondered if he had the same power as her, though much more powerful obviously. The man denied everything and told her that he was only there because he had received a note to challenger her to a friendly duel. Janus asked to see the note, and it was indeed just as she feared. The note was written in boxed calligraphy and in English lettering, for Japanese words.

Janus looked annoyed and handed the note back to the man and agreed to fight him, she felt like she needed to blow off steam anyway.

The diviner and the snake oil man walked outside together. They talked about nothing important, after all Janus was much faster and stronger now, there was now way she was going to get taken advantage o-

The futures shifted and Janus got to watch herself get beat like a drum in surround sound + stereo and 3D. The man lurched a single movement and Janus found herself hurtling backwards on the ground before being grabbed by the arm and flung into a bush. She tried to summon another version of herself to hit the man but the moment it exited her body, the man simply grabbed it and shattered it to pieces.

She panicked, trying again but not managing to get her mind around anything as he grabbed her shoulder in an iron like grip and lifted her up with one arm before tossing her like a rag-doll to the side. Janus was pretty sure she skipped on the ground as she tried to summon another Janus from any future, anywhere to help her, to no avail. She closed her eyes, hoping it was over but knowing her luck was never actually that good.

The man watched another Janus appear and he simply slammed his fist through the image of the future, shattering it like Janus' chances of being able to do anything before kicking her while she was down. The young woman coughed up blood and dry heaved before throwing up. It was at that point the man seemed to believe he had done enough to her and he brushed his hair back and walked back to the front of the hotel to grab his hat.

Janus rolled on the ground for a while as she groand and cried, the man started to leave before looking down at her and tipping his hat politely. "The funny thing is, miss Diviner. You would never even begin to believe what's controlling you." He stated to her as he took off. Janus lied there and hoped she would die, but as soon as she could no longer hear the man's footsteps, she heard Yuki's voice calling her name, before she passed out again. She was getting really sick of losing.