After leaving the private island, the trio would return to the road where a nice looking black sports car was parked.

"This is your car?" Asked Mei as Raven nodded.

"Of course. Whose else could it be?"

"Since when did you get a license?" Asked Alex.

"Kid come on I'm a mercenary. I can drive any vehicle if need be."

"I figured you'd get a car that would've stood out more." Said Mei.

"Well, I did want a red car but I couldn't find a good model in red. Anyways, come on. Get in already."

"You said that the seaside is a bit far from here? If that's the case then I'll be taking a nap in the backseat. Wake me up when we're close by." Said Alex as he opened the door and got in the back, closing it and immediately laying down.

Mei would enter on the passenger side, buckling up her seat belt along with Raven as the merc started the car, it's engine roaring to life like a beast as the vehicle began making its way to their destination.

It didn't take long for Alex to fall asleep as a few minutes in, the boy was out like a light.

Shortly after that, the two girls upfront began to have a conversation.

"Back on what you said last night, you mentioned that humans were helping the puppets?" Asked Mei.

"Yeah. It was a delivery guy. He put a puppet in a box and put the box in the ally by the warehouse at night. That puppet wound up getting out and entered the warehouse through pipes. It thoroughly trashed the place before returning to the box." Said Raven.

"That must explain why no one saw it in the neighborhood. Naturally no one would think that a box that was hundreds of yards from the scene had a role in it. That still leaves a question though. Why exactly would the delivery man do this?"

"Who knows? Maybe he was coerced, manipulated, or is just crazy in the head. We'll have to ask him in person tonight." Said Raven.

Mei harkened back to what Alex had told her about the puppets and how they'd target a person's insecurities to get them to do their bidding.

"So, how'd you figure out their next target?"

"I have connections. Remember the warehouse we've looked into?"

"Yes. We've gone through three so far."

"Correct. All sabotaged by the puppets and guess what? They each belong to a notorious organization. This city is ran by four organizations."

"Wouldn't the city be better off without these warehouse? Why would the puppets do something that benefits the common folk? Unless...........each organization blames the other."

"Bingo. Right on the dot. The conflict's in full swing. Only a matter of time before collateral damage reaches civilians."

"I see. With all that info, that must surely mean that the puppet will pay the last warehouse a visit tonight, right?" Asked Mei.

"Correct. It wants an all-out war that'll tear this city down. It isn't for a personal agenda either. Those things just wanna watch the world burn. That won't happen though. We will end this little adventure of theirs tonight."

The car would exit the forest as it went onto an open road by the cliffside which overlooked the ocean.

Mei looked out the window, enjoying the nice view.

While staring back, her mind wandered over to Alex and the conversation they had back at the island.

Even though he probably wouldn't appreciate it, Mei had to inform Raven.

"Hey."

"What?"

"I have to tell you somethings, about Alex."

"Okay, go on." Said Raven as she was intrigued.

"Well, turns out he actually knew more than he was letting on about the Herrscher. He knows more than we do at the moment."

"Oh really?"

"Yes. He knew it's name, what abilities they possess, he's been to their domain twice now, and he knows how exactly these puppets influence humans."

"What's the method then?"

"According to him, they target the mentally weak. Those that have checked out completely from the world and want no part of it anymore. That's how they're able to spread their influence so easily. It makes those who want an exit seek the easy way out."

"I see. That makes a lot of sense."

"Since there's so many of them, they can easily manipulate Honkai Energy weaker than theirs."

When Mei said that, things began to make sense for Raven concerning Alex's odd behavior recently.

"I see. That must've been why he did that? They were messing with his mind."

"Hm? What did he do?"

"He just randomly punched the window in his room and shattered it. Left a few bad cuts on his hand so I had to disinfect and wrap it. I hope he didn't do anything worse after that."

Mei would keep very quiet though Raven easily picked up on that.

"You know something. What did he do?" She asked.

"................a few hours after that I went to pay a visit. When I entered his room, he was sitting on his bed with a gun pointed to his head. I was thankfully able to stop him before he pulled the trigger, however that Herrscher clearly had an extreme level of control over him." Said Mei before looking at Raven with a serious expression. "Please tell me, is there anything personally that he isn't letting on?"

Raven would keep quiet for a bit before sighing.

"Ever since he first arrived at the Roost, he was a pretty upbeat and easy going kid despite having been on his own two years prior. Was very talkative back then. That all changed after his first every mercenary job. Happened a week after I had officially signed him up. His first ever job is something that doesn't like talking about. So much so that I only ever got the basic details from the mission report I was given afterwards."

"May I ask what happened?"

"Since he was very new, his first job was a simple one. He just had to babysit the daughter of an independent Honkai researcher for a week. The man worked at home but was always too busy to make time for her."

"How'd her father get so famous?"

"Years ago, he became the first and to this day only ever man to successfully create a Honkai-Human hybrid and when I say that, I don't mean just giving a human Honkai Beast DNA like your principal. This was a full blown Honkai Beast that could think and speak like a normal human."

"W-Wow. I didn't know that was possible."

"Neirher did I. Unfortunately his creation which he dubbed as a Chimera only lived for three days. It refused to eat or drink anything. Despite his creation's quick death, he gained tons of notoriety. Unfortunately with this came the need to keep his fame. As the years went by, he slowly became forgotten as many failed attempts to create a new Chimera."

"I'm assuming his obsession with his research led to the need for a babysitter?"

"Yes. Apparently his wife had left him a few months prior to Alex accepting the job, so in the middle of that time he'd send a request for anyone to babysit for a week. The pay was quite nice. Alex himself eagerly showed me the request and I told him to go for it."

"What happened over the course of the week?"

"Well, early on it was going great. He'd watch the kid then come back after he was done and inform me on how things went. Around the middle of the week though is when things started to change. He'd visit but talk less and less about his day, even at times opting to outright avoid talking about it. I found it odd at first but decided that it was nothing much to worry about. Shame on me for that I guess. All hell would break loose on the penultimate day."

Mei noticed that Raven's voice had gotten a little shaky at the end there which was extremely uncharacteristic for her.

This immediately told the Herrscher that whatever happened that day wasn't pleasant.

"What.............happened?"

"I was attending to the bar in Arc City before I got a call. That place rarely gets any and it was fairly late so I answered. It was the police department from the neighborhood where Alex was babysitting. They told me that reports of an altercation were heard along with yelling from the house he was at. Before they could tell me anymore, I quickly put on my merc outfit and rushed my ass off over there. When I got to the house, I saw lots of cop cars there and the house taped off. I had spotted Alex sitting by the curb, a blanket over his head as he had clutched onto it. When I approached him, he was covered in blood and I could tell from his body language that he was visibly shaken. I tried to ask him what happened, but he was too distraught to speak. I ended up asking a nearby investigator who had seemingly investigated whatever happened."

"What'd he see?"

"In the basement was the father, beaten to a pulp. So badly in fact that he was barely alive. That wasn't the worst of it though. In that same room there was a dead Honkai Beast that had long brown hair and hollowed out white eyes."

At that moment, Mei's felt a pit form in her stomach as Raven's hands trembled recalling the memory before she finished what she was saying.

"It was his daughter. Out of desperation, that damn bastard fused his daughter with a Honkai Beast."

--------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 31: Complete