[Asheville, North Carolina]
The Basilica of Saint Peter Martyr did not invite belief; it demanded it.
Rising from the rolling hills of Asheville like a monument carved from judgment itself, its stone spires pierced the sky with such severity that even the clouds seemed to part around them. By day, its white stone shimmered with a deceptive serenity. But by night, it loomed like an austere sentinel bathed in candlelight and shadow. To some, its towering facade looked less like a sanctuary and more like a warning. To others, it was a bastion of devotion in a world long corrupted by sin.
And inside those walls, the air was thick with both incense and silence.
The vaulted ceilings of the basilica stretched impossibly high, supported by columns etched with saints who no longer looked as merciful as one would've been led to believe. Their stone eyes followed all who passed beneath them, their expressions frozen somewhere between sorrow and condemnation. Gold leaf adorned every arch and altar, but beneath the gilded surface lay something colder, something deliberate.
This was not a simple house of worship for those who sought the light of God.
It was a machine.
And deep within its sanctified halls, hidden beneath layers of ritual and reverence, it breathed with purpose.
-(o)-
The doors to the lower sanctum opened without a sound. And through them stepped a trio clad in the black and red garments that their order was known for. Their hems were dusted with the faint gray residue of something that was not quite ash and not quite soil. Their steps were both measured and synchronized. Not out of ceremony, but born from conditioning.
Arnold Cassidy stepped through first, his boots echoing softly against polished marble floors beneath him. He did not look up at the towering crucifix suspended above the entryway, nor did he linger on the faint smell of burned oil that clung to the corridor. After all, he had walked this path far too many times to be moved by its theater.
The platinum blonde carried himself like a man who had long ago made peace with violence. Not because he enjoyed it, but because he understood it. His face was calm, almost distant, but his pale blue eyes moved constantly, cataloging, assessing. Nothing in the Basilica surprised him. In all honesty, nothing ever did anymore.
Behind him, Pamela Testaferrata followed with even sharper steps, precision shaped into energetic elegance. Her posture was rigid, but her gaze was alive with a restless energy she did little to conceal. And her gloved fingers flexed at her sides as if still remembering the weight of the weapon she had carried only hours before. There was a hunger about her that she neither hid nor apologized for. Her name carried weight here. And she intended to make sure it carried even more.
Eric Peters came last. His gaze lingering far too long on things he ought to be used to by now.
He hesitated, just slightly, before crossing the threshold. It was subtle, the kind of pause no one would remark upon. But he felt it. A quiet resistance in his chest, as though something unseen had braced against him. He had learned to walk like them. To speak like them. To kill like them. But he had not yet learned how not to feel like them.
The feeling quickly passed.
And the door closed behind them.
-(o)-
The chamber they entered was stark in contrast to the opulence of the Basilica above. No gold. No saints. Only cold stones and shadows.
The first thing they noticed was the long obsidian table that stretched across the center of the room, illuminated by a single suspended light that cast harsh, unforgiving angles to what lay below it. And at its far end stood a man in crimson vestments, the typical attire for one of his station.
Cardinal Patrick Lynch did not turn to greet them upon arrival. They had long grown accustomed to the idea that the man could feel their presence whenever he felt like it. So there was no need to announce their presence.
"You're late." The man said in a tone that the trio found all too familiar. His voice was calm and measured, but the authority behind it carried.
Arnold stepped forward, stopping three paces from the table before speaking. "Sorry, Your Lordship… there was traffic."
A faint smile touched Pamela's lips after hearing that. She may have had her differences with her partner, but the man's particular sense of humor was always a treat.
The Cardinal then turned to gaze upon them.
He stood before a massive wall, upon which hung not art, but strategy.
Maps layered over maps. Cities circled. Names written, crossed out, and rewritten once more. Threads of red string connecting locations across different states. And a slew of religious iconography sat interwoven with logistical precision, crucifixes marking strike zones, and saintly relics positioned like tactical markers.
It was a war room, disguised as devotion. Or at least that's what Arnold thought it looked like. He wasn't dumb enough to say it out loud, however.
The light caught the man's face just enough to reveal the scars that decorated it. Trophies of previous victories and defeats alike. They ran jagged and pale across his cheek and down his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his robes. Old wounds. Deep ones. The kind that did not fade, at least not truly.
His eyes, however, were untouched. Clear and focused, but no less unforgiving.
"Report."
"Everything went as expected." Arnold began. His voice was steady, almost detached. "Single target. Rural area away from any major population centers. No witnesses."
Pamela stepped forward, unable or unwilling to remain silent for too long. "The subject was identified as a D-rank 'fire magic' user. Mild defensive capabilities, but nothing that we couldn't handle, Your Eminence. Engagement lasted roughly two hours after first contact."
"Two and a half, actually." Eric said.
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
The room then shifted.
Not physically. Not visibly.
But something in the air tightened.
Pamela's head turned sharply toward him, her expression flashing with irritation. Arnold did not look at him at all.
Lynch did, however. "Resistance?"
"Minimal." Arnold replied. "He barely put up a fight after initial contact. He mostly tried to flee."
"Casualties?"
"None on our side." Pamela answered this time. "No injuries either."
The man nodded once. "And the subject?"
Arnold did not hesitate. "Purged."
The word hung in the air like a ritual.
Not killed.
Not executed.
Purged.
Pamela allowed herself the smallest flicker of satisfaction. Eric swallowed hard.
"Details." The older man continued.
Pamela exhaled slowly, regaining her composure. "Simple tracking and containment, our usual method. We managed to hit him with a mana-suppressing drug before he fully realized what happened. After that, we waited for the drug to work its way through his system before confronting him. All the running he did ended up working in our favor."
"We almost lost him in the woods. But the tracking equipment saved us a lot of time." Eric said quietly.
Arnold spoke over him. "It was hardly a challenge, especially since there were three of us."
That earned a nod from the grizzled man.
Silence followed after that. Not heavy, not reflective. Simply expected.
There was no praise. No acknowledgment beyond completion.
The work was done, and that was enough.
"It's not time for you to return to your quarters yet, I'm afraid." Lynch then said as he gestured toward the three. "Come with me, there's more work that we need to discuss."
Pamela's eyes sharpened. "Another assignment? Already?"
"Not yet." The Cardinal motioned toward a door set into the far wall. One made of steel, reinforced, and utterly out of place in a structure built on ancient stone. "I need to tell you about our newest mission and what it will entail."
Arnold's brow creased, just barely. That was new.
Even Pamela hesitated, more out of curiosity than anything else. It was rare for them to get assignments back-to-back like this. Usually, they would go a few weeks before identifying another target that needed to be cleansed from this world.
Eric felt it again, that quiet resistance. But this time, he simply let it pass.
-(o)-
The steel door opened into something deeper. Another room hidden beneath the grandeur of the church above. The Basilica did not merely descend; it transformed. Stone gave way to reinforced concrete. Candlelight turned into sterile illumination. And the air grew colder, thinner, stripped of anything resembling sanctity.
And in it was the nerve center of their entire operation.
Rows of screens flickered with data. Surveillance feeds, satellite imagery, and shifting patterns of movement across the entire country. Maps marked in red and gold stretched across digital displays, lines intersecting in ways that suggested not chaos, but design.
A war room.
Not for armies, but for something quieter.
"Our order…" Lynch said, stepping into the center of the chamber. "Is not a relic, nor is it simply for show."
His voice carried differently here. Less echo, more precision.
"It is not history. And it is not a myth."
He turned, and for the first time, there was something beneath the calm. Something sharper.
"It is both continuity and righteousness."
The screens shifted, and a slew of images appeared on them. Blurred figures, captured in mid-motion. Flames that bent unnaturally. Shadows that moved without light. Faces twisted in ways that defied explanation.
"Magic…" Lynch said. "Is not a gift."
Another image. A body burned too badly to allow any sort of recognition.
"It is not evolution."
Another image. A city street, fractured as though reality itself had splintered.
"It is blasphemy."
The word landed like a verdict.
"As you all know, we are not hunters." He continued. "We are custodians."
Another shift. Names, locations, dates.
"Humanity was not meant to share its world with the unnatural. It corrupts. It spreads. It rewrites what is sacred into something…profane."
His gaze moved across them. Examining them to see whether or not they understand both what he was and wasn't trying to say.
"Sorcerers are not anomalies. They are an infection. One that we must end before this world of ours is too far gone to realize it."
Pamela stood taller, her eyes reflecting the glow of the screens. This, this was what she had been raised for. Not just the missions, not the kills.
This.
Purpose at scale.
Legacy in motion.
The idea that she was a part of the chosen few who knew the ugly truth of this world and were tasked with ensuring that the evils within it never took hold over what was truly righteous and divine.
Arnold remained still, his expression unreadable. But his eyes tracked the data on the screen, especially the scope of it. This was larger than anything they had been deployed for in the past. And it was far more ambitious than anything he had seen in quite a long time.
Eric…stared.
Not at the screens, but at the bodies they displayed. The remnants of what looked to be former members of their order who had met unceremonious ends at the hands of those demons. The same creatures who had humiliated him all those months ago.
"For decades…" Lynch said. "We have worked in silence. We have erased. Contained. And purified those who spit in the face of God's grace. But that silence breeds ignorance. And in these…trying times, ignorance is not our ally."
The room dimmed slightly as the displays shifted once more.
A single image filled the largest screen, one of a woman. A woman whom the trio recognized almost immediately. Young. Radiant. And smiling beneath the glare of stage lights. She was, after all, one of the most famous women in the world. Adored in nearly every nation, and loved by even more.
Elaine MacNamara.
"Our benefactors in Rome…" Lynch said carefully as he eyed the three youngsters in front of him. "Have granted us something unprecedented. Something that I have been working towards for many years."
He stepped closer to the image.
"Permission."
The word seemed to echo longer than it should have.
"Not merely to act. But to finally reveal."
Arnold finally spoke. "Reveal what?"
Lynch did not look at him.
"The truth."
The lights dimmed further, and the Basilica above them was reduced to memory. Here, beneath layers of stone and doctrine, something else had taken root. Not faith. Not quite. Something harder. Something sharpened by time, by loss, by hatred refined into purpose.
"When humanity sees what walks among them…" Lynch said, his voice almost reverent now. "They will understand."
The image of Elaine flickered, just slightly.
"They will fear."
Another flicker. For a fraction of a second, something else appeared. Something unnatural, something wrong. Then the image stabilized itself once again.
"And in that fear…"
His eyes gleamed.
"They will choose us. Not them. Us."
Silence settled over the chamber. Not the empty kind of silence, but the waiting kind.
Eric felt it then, not resistance, not hesitation. Recognition. Not of truth. But of something far more dangerous.
Belief.
Above them, the Basilica stood unmoved, its towering spires cutting into the night, its halls filled with whispered prayers and flickering light.
A place of worship.
A place of judgment.
A place where faith had been forged into something unyielding.
Something absolute.
Something that did not question.
Arnold's voice cut through the silence. "What is the objective, Your Eminence?"
Lynch looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since he entered his presence. And for just a moment, something almost like respect flickered in his expression.
"Clarity, my boy." Lynch said. Then, after a beat, he spoke again. "Clarity through fire."
Lynch clasped his hands together. His gaze hardened, not with anger, but with certainty. "Prepare yourselves, my children. For what comes next will not merely change this war that we have been fighting for so long in the shadows. It will change the world."
The man bowed his head, and the others followed as they always did.
"Let us pray." Lynch said.
But what followed was not prayer. It was a vow.
"Dear Lord…" The scarred man began. "Grant us the strength to cleanse what is unclean. Grant us the will to burn away the corruption. Grant us the clarity to see your enemies for what they are. And to show the world the rot that lays beneath it."
His voice deepened.
"Not as people."
A pause.
"But as blasphemy."
Eric's hands trembled.
Pamela's grip tightened.
Arnold closed his eyes and allowed the words to wash over him.
"And when the fire comes." Lynch whispered. "Let it be righteous."
Above them, the Basilica stood silent and immovable, its stained glass glowing faintly against the night.
A monument to faith.
A monument to suffering.
A monument to something far more dangerous than either.
And deep within its foundations, an unseen and unquestioned choice was made.
The war had officially begun. And through it, those who were born to stray from the will of God will finally be given the condemnation in which they have evaded for so long.
-(o)-
Character Profile: Eric
Name: Eric David Peters
Alias: N/A
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Birthday: July 19th
Birthplace: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, United States
Height: 70in
Weight: 158lbs.
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Race: White
Magic: N/A
Occupation: Inquisitor Executioner
Stat Chart:
-Physical Strength - 3
-Speed - 3
-Intelligence - 2
-Technique - 3
-Combat Prowess - 3.5
Fun Fact:
-Favorite food is chocolate cake.
-Favorite activity is swimming.
-Favorite anime is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.