A Mountain of Information

[Nox]

The Ascenedancy spoke in terms of black and white. He believed the Atharim evil and he had every right to do so. They had hounded him for a while. He was Apollon. The destroyer of worlds, and he was well on his way to dominating it. But that didn't mean he was right. "Not all Atharim are bad. And not all of them are stupid." Nox pulled out his wallet and thumbed to the Atharim database and flipped through the personal files before he flipped into holo mode so the Ascendancy could read the files without having his wallet. He wasn't giving that up. Sage would kill him for losing another one, but it held his life and the only remaining link to the Atharim. His data wasn'ts complete, Sage hadn't finished his scans before he was cut off, but he had enough. "I don't have a problem giving your people what they want, but you will have to sedate me before you try to put a needle in me. Irrational fears and an voilitale darkness aren't going to go well. It's the main reason I left the hospital without being cleared they wanted to stick me again."

Nox pointed at the woman on the screen. "According to her files she studies the monsters." Nox pulled up several scans of Oni and Dreyken and other monsters. "Someone has been studying the monsters. Not all Atharim hunt and kill someone has to tell us how to kill these things. They are few and far between, but her, she knows what the monsters are. She can help. I'm not saying no to you, I will help your scientists. My sister would kill me if I said no to learning the science of why, so yes, whatever you need from me. But I can't be locked up, use me while I am still me. Kill me later if you must but I am me. And I think." Nox pushed up another profile. "He can help me. This is the man who hunted me. If this was his first time channeling in two to three weeks he's going to be sick as fuck. He'll know what he is. But he won't know he can survive, or how he can survive. He only knows that some do. I believe most men who are dogmatic are also selfish. I know I am. I can't say I'd kill a kid cause he could channel, but I've killed men for just as stupid reasons. On my father's orders, but still I did it. Once he learns he can survive. And he learns that his power can help him in his hunt, I believe he'll help. And if he helps me I'll teach him how to survive. - nothing more. I don't want a fucking holding hunting me. Then I'd have to kill him and I really hate killing people." Nox wasn't being aragont, but he knew his capabilities, and against a baby god, the man stood no chance. A simple shield, a weave of razor sharp air around his neck or a fireball could easily end the inquisitors life. Specially one who came at him without the knowledge of his own true power. Nox may fear the Ascendancy, but he didn't fear most others. Most being the key word.

"Your scientists can understand the science, but they won't understand the monsters. They won't know their instincts or their habits. People like Aria and myself who keep notes and records, that's how you figure out behaviors, and part of what's wrong with me is beyond science - at least the kind that is based on fact and outside of the personality. You'll want to throw in a psychologist to understand too. The power is like an addiction. You know this better than anyone. You are the first."

The Ascendnacy revealed his past - though Nox knew some of the tale. And his own tattoo was gone. He no longer was what once had been his only identity, and yet, Nox felt like it still was his only life line. This was all he knew. Nox rubbed at the bandage still on his arm, it was starting to ache again, and he was too far from home and comfort to take another pill. He hadn't even brought any with him. But it was the tattoo that was missing that made the ache worse. "The Atharim are blinded by one man's dream. You say he's dead, but you know he's not. He couldn't have sent the Ijiraq from the grave." Nox smirked. "Not even you are that powerful yet. I won't presume to tell you how to do your job, but the registry wasn't the way to go about making the Atharim feel safe. People who put their name on that registry if no one's like me, they'll be hunted. The shadows are where we live. Bring them home, bring them to you, give me an army of Atharim and I'll clean those tunnels out. But the only way we do that is to make Vaia Plus stop doing what they were doing in the first place. Dorian was investigating. I don't know what he's found, I'm not exactly speaking to him at the moment. But I'll fix that too."

Nox smiled at the offer of a prosthetic. "I could be very terminator like then." Nox laughed. "But normal looking would be good - sans the Atharim tattoo of course. I won't mark myself as them again. Even if you bring them to you. We once used gods as friends, they ended their own lives to save humanity, but we used them one and the same. I don't want to hurt people, but even my father would have put a bullet to my head."

Nox took a deep breath, and that brings me to the last matter. "The Regus was last seen in the Red Light District. I have a friend who has been tracking him since then. He lost in when they went off the grid." Nox pointed to the data stick. "The stick contains the same information." He pulled it up on his wallet to show him. "The Regus is employing masking tech so the cameras can't recognize him, but he didn't count on being seen by the human eye connected to a computer. The still image is exactly what my friend saw. It's grainy and glitchy because I'm told memory doesn't translate well to digital ones and zeros. But the time stamp of the camera footage and the image are the same. Do what you will with the information. And if one of those women surfaces again, my friend will know. And he'll relay the information to me and I can send it to you."