In the world of Alterian, panic had erupted in a particular studio. The special police force had arrived, and special barriers were placed around the dressing room. These barriers allowed only police personnel with certain specially enchanted badges to pass through.
It was easier this way as the place didn't always need to be on guard, and there was no need to tape off every scene. Today, the staff was in disarray and panic. Standing just outside one of the dressing rooms, Chief Officer Harvey looked down to his right, at the main studio.
Several staff members were panicking and already typing away on their mobile devices. Talking amongst each other. A few had tried to take a peak and approached the barrier as it was the first time seeing such a thing, but it was doing their job not letting anyone further in.
"Of all places for this to happen, huh?" John said as he opened up a strange-looking device that almost looked like a stick with a blue tip at the end. John placed it in his mouth and sucked on the top end, and the whole stick lit up for a moment.
Inside his body, he felt a refreshing burst of mana coursing through, allowing him to calm down for a moment.
"Hey, don't look at me like that," John said, taking the device out of his mouth. "You know this was produced by Gizin's company; it's all perfectly legal."
"It's not that which is annoying me," Harvey replied. "It's your stinking breath. Besides, relying on that stuff will only make you weaker. What are you going to do when we need to chase these guys down? Pop your little wand out and have a puff before trying to blast them away?"
"We all can't be like you, Harvey, a natural talent, a five-star mage. Anyway, look at them—all of them are messaging away. We're meant to keep this under wraps, but I guess it's impossible in a public studio."
Right then, the door opened up, and a couple of officers emerged in white robes, one female, the other male.
"We're done recording everything in the room," the officer stated. "So you two can have a look. We'll send this off to headquarters and see if there's a match or if any suspects pop up."
As they moved aside, John and Harvey walked into the room. As he entered, Harvey couldn't help but make a remark.
"It'll be useless anyway."
"Don't be like that," John said, who was going to say more but stopped as the sight of the room was worse than he had imagined.
He quickly raised his hand to his mouth, and his hand started to glow, clearing the air around him, allowing him to breathe.
"This entire place is a complete mess—mangled corpses that looked to have been played with," John said.
Although John was having a hard time, Harvey wasn't. He had gotten close to several bodies in the room.
He walked with little care and even knelt down next to the dead, taking a closer look at them. He even reached out his hand and started jabbing the body.
"Is this how you became the chief? Not because of your powers but because of your stomach—to take crap . And what's a bunch of poking around going to do anyway? It's quite clear what happened to her. Such a shame."
The body that John was looking at, in particular, was the presenter Ashley—a well-known figure, and the biggest issue is that she died in the studio itself.
The problem was news got out fairly quickly after that, and rumors were already circulating online.
It was then that John received a call and started to walk away as he answered.
"Yes, sir… yes… Harvey and I are here and on it…"
While John was taking the call, Harvey decided to do his own probing.
'It was clearly done by magic, but from what I know, Ashley was a four-star mage. She rose to fame not just because she impressed people, but she was quite skilled herself.'
'Not only was she killed, but everyone in the room—her assistant and the makeup artist—so there are no witnesses, and no one saw anyone enter or leave the studio.'
'Is it invisibility? There was nothing on the cameras either. No, I have a suspicion those tapes were altered.'
'Invisibility wouldn't require that, which means someone was here.'
In the middle of his thoughts, John ended the call and sighed.
"I know you're not going to , Harvey, but it's orders from the higher-ups. Because of all the rumors being spread, they want a report and statement by the end of today," John said. "I've already got the boys interviewing staff and getting statements from everyone."
Harvey stood up and smiled as he looked at John.
"A statement? Why, so we can make sure it's not him?" Harvey asked.
"What are you getting at?" John asked.
"You know what I'm getting at. The rumors are getting out of hand. It's not like something hasn't happened before."
"The rules are to not make a report on any information we have. The more information we release, the harder it is to catch the actual suspect because they can just tell us details that have already been revealed."
"Right, but my hands are tied, both of ours are, if you say what you want to say, we could get in trouble, and if someone hears it, we could both be targeted by all sorts!"
"Bullshit!" Harvey said, pointing his finger and jabbing John in the chest.
It was starting to make John sweat a bit. Although John didn't directly work under Harvey and his team, the few times he had, he had seen Harvey explode and was well aware of his nature.
The issue was, because of John's calm nature, many times they would send him out to work with Harvey.
"They only want us to make a report stating that he's not guilty because everyone online is already suspecting the obvious," Harvey said. "That this was done by the F***ing Grand Magus. It was done by Enaxx."