Something cracked into Anthony’s helmet, sending him flipping through the air and into a wall. A towering, at least seven-foot-tall monster stood over him, its bulk blocking out the light as Anthony’s head faded to black.
“And now,” said the rubber man, “you’ve met Shadow Eater.”
• • • • •
Anthony opened his eyes slowly and groggily; his armor sprawled across the floor. It looked like a few of them had been trying to open it up and tinker with it, but there were protections against those things, as seen by the fact that they now left it alone and the hunched shape of Night Stealer gripped a bandage around his hand.
“Wake up!” Dark Feather snarled that he had his helmet off, and Anthony was surprised to see a beak-less face underneath. A completely normal, if scowling, face stared up at him. Light pale skin, dark bright eyes, and a small crop of black hair spread frugally around his scalp.
Anthony blinked a few times, noticing he was suspended in the air by rusty chains on his wrists. His throat was parched, and he was in a bad mood from being surprised by the fourth member, although there were likely more. He’d thought his AI might have warned him sooner, but it was really his fault.
“My friend says you can aid him. I am loath to agree, but you are a guild agent after all,” Dark Feather announced, removing the chains and lowering Anthony down. Anthony’s arms burned like fire. Dark Feather swung the key on his finger before pocketing it in his armored vest that draped down with a few bits of cloth below his knees at a level with his heavily armored knee plates.
Anthony rubbed his shoulder briefly, then walked ahead of Dark Feather as he shoved him along. Dark Feather stopped and pointed to a sheet of blueprints. “We are attempting to build this. You will help us, or you will die. And I can make it happen in stages to give you a second chance to help, perhaps without an arm.”
Anthony ground his teeth together, then, trying to figure out a plan, he pointed at the plans, “What is it?”
“A great machine built by an inventor long ago, it was his last. Night Stealer will tell you the details.”
Anthony looked at the pasty goblin in front of him. He was short and hunched up with broad shoulders and thin limbs. His skin was almost pure white with splotches of off-white or grey. His face was covered by a metal mask with tubes running all over it to the back of his neck, connecting to a box-like object covered by the cloak. The only thing the mask didn’t cover was Night Stealer’s long nose protruding out between the metal.
“You will help me build this machine. You will not try to lie to me or escape.”
Anthony shrugged, “You people sure like giving out threats. What is this?”
Night Stealer gestured at the blueprints, “That is unimportant. I can piece this together, but I want you to help interpret the guild symbology.”
“I can’t help without knowing what it is,” Anthony bluffed.
Night Stealer whipped a knife out from seemingly nowhere and stuck it to Anthony’s neck, “Do not lie to me! As I said once, the only reason you are still alive is that I think you can be of some help. With or without you, we will build this. Your choice is how long you want to live.”
Anthony, eyes wide, nodded, forming a plan. He pointed at the first sheet of blueprints, “Okay, you are going to need three sets of irzium blenders in a parallel configuration.”
Night Stealer pulled his seat up, “Good, good.”
It was almost three hours later when Anthony looked around and noticed Dark Feather was not standing behind him. He looked at Night Stealer, who was busy trying to screw down some metal strips over a collection of wires. He cleared his throat, getting Night Stealer’s attention, “Do you even know what you are building?”
Night Stealer shrugged, the most human thing Anthony had seen him do, “sort of. Here, hold this, please.”
Anthony grabbed the heavy box-like object and held it up while Night Stealer soldered some more pieces on, “Where is everyone else? This place is quiet.”
Night Stealer glanced around aimlessly, if you could call his metal face that, “Death Grim, Dark Feather, Shadow Eater, and Black Fang are elsewhere in town, preparing.”
Anthony gripped the box tighter, “Is there anyone else in your ‘band’? Because five doesn’t seem to make a band to me if three doesn’t.”
Night Stealer rolled his eyes (though no one could tell under his mask) and said rather petulantly, “Well, Dark Band sounds cooler than Dark Five or Dark Group.”
Anthony lifted the little but heavy box. “Thanks.” He brought it down with a crash into Night Stealer’s head, who slumped back with a grunt. Anthony sprinted away, still holding onto the machine, and nearly tripped over his armor. It was probably too big to lift, so he lay down on it, and it folded around him. He shoved on his helmet but didn’t have time to worry about boots or gloves before his AI scrawled a warning across his screen.
Anthony ducked just as a large blade whizzed across his head and stuck to the wall. Night Stealer stood behind him, a blade wrapped by his long fingers in each hand. The metal mask had cracked, and a piece of it had fallen away from his mouth, showing a small hole surrounded by scar tissue.
Anthony backed up. He couldn’t help but apologize, though. “Yikes, sorry dude, I…”
“Shut up!” Night Stealer howled, throwing another blade across the room, nearly burying itself into Anthony’s ducking shoulder. Night Stealer followed this throw with himself, flipping over Anthony and cutting into the side of the armor joint. Anthony yelped in pain and stood back, taking a fighting stance.
“You want to apologize for something?” Night Stealer hissed cocking his head, “Apologize for this.” He gestured at his whole body, “You find me hideous, do you not?”
“Agreed,” Anthony said, leaping over Night Stealer’s next attack, but apparently not high enough as the blade bit into his unprotected foot.
“This is what your precious guild has done to me!” Night Stealer raged, slicing out again and then hurling a knife straight into Anthony’s armored chest, which only succeeded in knocking him over. This blade’s momentum was crazy.
“I was a guild agent once,” Night Stealer mused, “I wore fancy armor like you, and they used me in their schemes.”
Anthony’s biggest weakness was probably his great interest in the people he was supposed to arrest. “What happened?”
Night Stealer leaped forward and knocked him back with tremendous strength, cutting inches from Anthony’s jerking back neck. “Controlled mutation, they called it!” He screamed. Anthony launched himself in a flip away as Night Stealer continued to rage, “I ask you, is there anything ‘controlled’ about me?”
Anthony strapped on his gauntlet, “low power,” he muttered to his AI, and then caught Night Stealer’s next blade in his hand before tossing it aside and charging its thrower down. Night Stealer jumped away with great agility, but Anthony caught him with the side of his hand, bringing his fist down with a ‘thwap’ into Night Stealer’s small body.
There was a miniature shock wave, and Anthony stumbled away, tripping on the metal mask covering that Night Stealer had worn. Hurriedly, he put on the rest of his armor. He crossed the makeshift room of box walls and out into the greater factory floor. A weak, thin voice called out from behind him, making Anthony turn to look at Night Stealer’s prone form.
He had no eyes, barely a mouth, and scarred up patches instead of ears, “Dark Feather? Black Fang? Please, don’t leave me in the dark.”
Anthony paused and stopped himself from returning. “I’m sorry,” He said, walking away. “For all you’ve been through, but I have to stop this.” For some reason, he wanted to go back and grab him, but even as he thought about it, he could hear someone entering the factory, several people. He had to go now.
Anthony fired a magnetic tether through a window and shot up and out. He sprinted through the increasing gloom, wondering what time it was. He’d probably missed all his classes for the day. He launched across the city, wishing he’d thought to grab his jet pack.
The sound of a tether cord engaging turned his head. Alia stood, hands on hips, pointing a stun gun at him, “That is far enough, Anthony.”
“Ah, there you are, finally,” Anthony said, leaning against the skyscraper’s spire where they stood.
“You make it sound like you expected me,” Alia muttered, stepping forward, “but I’m actually here to arrest you.”
“For what?” Anthony said, holding out his hands, “Skipping school duty?”
“No, you were implemented in an inside guild scheme to build and ship illegal weapons,” Alia said, clipping the chains on.
“That is… absurd. How long did it take our imaginative chief to invent this?” Anthony said. He should win the award for the best fiction this year. His AI chimed in. To his surprise, Anthony realized it was on his side for once.
“This isn’t a joke, Anthony!” Alia snapped, taking the metal box from his hand, “I’m taking this as evidence.”
“You haven’t done this before, have you?” Anthony asked.
“Why?”
“How do we get down from here with me chained?” Anthony asked dramatically, holding his hands in front of him. His AI chided him, running words across his screen. Give the girl a break. This is probably the first time she’s arrested someone.
Alia grumbled under her breath about cocky youths, asserting that she did know how to arrest someone, while removing his chains.
“Let’s go to the chief together. I’ll politely tell him…” That he is being idiotic? His AI asked. Anthony ignored that and continued, “…That he is mistaken, and show him this!”
Anthony swiped back the box. Alia shrugged, “What is that?”
“A weapon. Whose makers we are going to stop!”
“Fine,” Alia said, turning away, “you’d better be right about this.”
A new figure, wearing the standard guild armor for an agent like Anthony’s, stepped out from behind the door into the building. “Halt right there!”
Anthony let out another groan, “What is wrong with you guys and pointing guns at the wrong people!”
Two more guild agents followed. All of them had guns out. Tiberius, Anthony’s sworn enemy, held the front and jabbed his weapon at him, “Down on the ground now!”
Anthony got down reluctantly. His AI silently scrolled out angry abuses against the chief Tiberius and some against Cypostello for good measure until Anthony told it to shut up.
Alia put her hands into the air angrily. “What is the meaning of this, Tiberius?”
“The meaning is that the chief knew he couldn’t trust you or Anthony,” Tiberius said. He holstered his rifle on his back. “Now march!”
• • • • •
“So you have a box of wires meant to use irzium and a bunch of fairytales about gremlins and rubber creatures.”
Anthony nodded, “Yep, that is about right, although there is only one ‘fairytale’ technically, seeing as it is one narrative.”
Alia sat next to him, glaring at space, while the chief sat across from them, yet again fuming mad. It had been almost six hours since their capture and placement in a cell in the guild prisons meant to contain the altered that the guild had fought at first, and now not really used. Being in that cell had improved anyone’s mood, especially not Alia’s.
“This is ridiculous,” the chief said, mostly to himself. Then, the chief looked at Anthony. “You are ridiculous. What is your obsession with enemies that don’t exist? Why must you go hunt for trouble?”
Anthony stood up. “What happened to Thearen?”
The chief’s eyes dilated quickly. “What?”
“The guild member who disappeared around the same time that I joined. I heard he was asking too many questions, supposedly. He was the agent known far and wide for his amazing knife-throwing skills. I heard they never found his body.”
The chief’s face turned red. “Agent Thearen died from a current shock while trying to fix an electrical issue in a power plant. A power surge killed him and burned him beyond recognition.”
Alia looked between Anthony and the chief. “Shut up, Anthony. You are already in enough trouble as it is.”
Anthony ignored her and answered the chief, “Maybe, but then again, maybe you put him in one of the very guild machines he was investigating, put through some kind of controlled mutation, perhaps?”
The chief staggered back and called in security, “Take this agent out! You know what to do with him.”
The guards nodded and stepped forward. Anthony crossed his arms. “So now what? Am I to disappear too, to end up a knife-throwing gremlin in a broken-down factory?”
“Ridiculous, preposterous!” the chief cried.
Anthony scratched his chin, “Oh, good point, I’m not a very good knife thrower. I can do hand-to-hand pretty well though…”
The first guard held out a pair of e-cuffs while the second covered Anthony with a pistol. In a flash of movement, Anthony had the first guard in his handcuffs and threw him at his compatriot. They tumbled across the floor, and the gun went flying. The first guard jumped at him, forgetting briefly that Anthony was a guild agent and had gone through the most rigorous training imaginable. Anthony clipped him in the gut with his arm and launched him back into his buddy on the floor just as the guy stood up.
Tiberius entered just then. He still wore the armor and carried all the weapons of a guild agent, unlike Anthony, who was wearing simple shorts and a shirt.
A helmet hid Tiberius’s blond hair and nasty expression as he stalked forward. Anthony let out an audible groan, “Really! Tiberius, you do show up at the worst moments!”
Before the two had time to fight, the floor shook and began to tilt dramatically. Everyone slipped to the side, and as the tilt increased, Tiberius even fell out the door. Shelves crashed, and more bangs came from outside the room. Anthony found himself in no time, next to the chief, as he screamed, “What is happening!?”
Anthony grabbed him by the collar, “Tell me! Tell me, chief! What did you do to Thearen!?”
Tiberius entered the room again, firing a tether to the wall to help him climb the steep floor. He came in just in time to hear the chief’s blubbering answer.
“Yes, yes, what you said was true!” the chief cried as the ground quaked more and more, “Thearen found out about the experiments, so we got rid of him. The guild was going to be defunded by the government! I had to find some way to keep us afloat! Some corporations wanted mutated lifeforms! All I was trying to do was keep the guild going! You can respect that, right?”
Anthony heaved him backward, “No. No, I can’t, and I don’t think Night Stealer can either.”
The chief coward in his corner as Anthony turned to the stunned Tiberius, “What is going on with the building?”
“That is the thing,” Tiberius said warily, “the whole place is floating into the air!”
“What?” Anthony shouted. He glanced out the window to see that the main building of the guild complex had taken to shaky flight and was hanging in mid-air. A dark shape stood below on the ground level, unnoticed by the panicking guild members who hadn’t fought in forever. It held a box-like device that was bigger but similar to the one on the chief’s office floor. It looked somewhat like a mummy. Scabbed, burned skin showed through some of the black wrappings, whose ends fluttered in the breeze dramatically. Two claw-like projections, likely made of Mishion, extended from his wrists, where black bandaged fingers manipulated controls. Though he had no fangs, Anthony had to guess this was Black Fang.
TO BE CONTINUED