The airport had a stagnant, happy air about it. Unassuming people bustled to and fro, shopping at overpriced shops, desperate for a final meal or drink before boarding their flights. I pitied them, their lowly, kind obedience. They all believed in their government, their country. Under this order, they believed that they’d be totally safe during their flights, that today in the modern era, there was zero chance of a rogue group, say, hijacking their flight.

They were, of course, wrong. Humans are after all, creatures for which there is a zero percent chance of a hundred percent efficiency. They are blemished souls, in dead bodies.

Brigs was of course one such specimen.

“Hey, listen pal, I’m asken you ta think fer five gahd-damn seconds here! I get that the prices are jacked up here, but I don’t understand why you won’t break me even with me here!”

He was currently haggling with a shop assistant to lower the price of chocolate m&m’s below that of peanut m&m’s. By his logic, the two should not be of the same price, due to their different ingredients.

My string was busy securing a plane, and I had trusted Isaac to look after Brigs and the Living Legs. But Mor Isaac Cre-umha was, assumedly, fed up with waiting, stood beside Brigs, flesh and copper arms crossed and waiting to be amused.

Not a single person batted an eye at either the tall man with a hagfish motif, nor the pair of metal legs running up and down the aisle of the shop, ‘wreaking havoc on the shop's customers. I had prepared a subtle holographic glimmer for each of us. For Units in our party, it served to stave screams of terror from the ignorant masses, for brigs it served to remove his face from the recognition of cameras. The mechanics of this glimmer are quite fascinating, a full body reform would be unnatural for Isaac and the legs, so I had to create a program whereby the light and projector-

“I don’t give a crap! Nobody cares about how it's done, you don’t gotta explain economics ta me lady! I’m just sayen to ya, there’s a farm for the chocolate, and a farm for the peanuts. The peanut versions got more in it, so it's a no brainer! That should cost more! But it don’t!”

Isaac chimed in, “Reminds me of you and I Brigs.”

Brigs turned to him, “Back me up here buddy!”

Instead, Isaac finally decided to do a bit of damage control, apologising in-depth for his companion's behaviour. Brigs tried to listen, but it went in one ear and out the other. He left without buying anything from the shop. I do not understand why he was arguing over prices; my string had broken his bank so that he had unlimited spending.

He cornered the legs at an intersection, pulling him from the aisle kicking and screaming until Brigs gave the legs its tablet.

He sat with his chin in his hands, glaring into space, thinking over our escape from the Internationals albeit through a skewed lens. He recalled nothing concerning the paranormal, the true events of what occurred a couple days ago.

The Ints had us surrounded on all sides, volleys of RO’s from above, exterminators equipped with powered suits, and multiple Units. My String had overlooked a few crucial hints that pointed towards this raid, which it will soon uncover.

Firstly, it had been focusing too hard on Axel Wright, Ireland, and the place that made a God. Somhaoira, girl made God, sits almost directly across from me, overlapping with her brothers Balor and Irminsul. They are among my least favourite of the Twenty-seven. Either they are impossible to work with, or they are too unsettlingly similar to us Opaque.

She had aided me at the meeting after the setting of the blind moon, at least she had done so in a manner befitting her contradictory nature. If she cared for the Pointless, for that non-entity upon the curve, then she would not have allowed me to come so far, so close.

Hers is not the shining morning; it is the setting sun and the night.

I wanted to confront her. I wanted to dissect her.

Such things were beyond my strings grasp, currently it was locating, loading the pop cannon. Its projectiles were half- functional within this reality, they had a profound effect on soul bearing objects. That is to say, it makes them explode. I used this and other nearby inventions to my advantage, as all else was reduced to atoms.

I was able to fend off their exterminators for a long while, my tools lasting for the length of the warehouse. For the rest of the way, I relied solely on my stasis hands, clamping shut the pistons of their mech-frames upon their bodies. Such violence led me to the others.

Brigs and Isaac were in a fire fight with the Ints, they had set a barricade up halfway through the sub room. The Living Legs was unaccounted for.

Brigs ceased his machine gun fire, upon seeing me enter from the side door on the enemies' side, calling out my name.

And arm was lobbed off of my String’s body, I twisted just in time to catch the unit with my other hand. It was a Unit with simian features, a gold head band on their head, a dishevelled suit, and a blue war staff.

“J-on, the Liquid crystal God. March 19th, 2020, Ally Cho.”

Revenge. I didn’t know what powers were before me, I rightly assumed they were martial and mystical in nature, the Ints tend to put their enemies against obstacles with which they are inexperienced or antithetical to.

“I do not know that is.” As my string assumed, the monkey man reacted with anger to this. His stick was in stasis, but his body spun around the floating object, denting me in the side. My stasis ray turned off, he landed in a crouch, spinning his stick around for show.

Just as he made a real move, I paralysed his foot with my dismembered hand, tripping him. During this I used my free hand as a tractor ray to shoot through a break in the armoured soldier's line. I was struck with gunfire, my body clattered at Brigs and Isaac’s feet.

“You crazy bastard,” Brigs said, as the Ints made a try for parley.

“Isaac Cre-umha, we already have the living legs in custody, turn in the Liquid-Crystal God and the first worlder and we can still work out an amicable deal between you and Axel Right.

Isaac laughed, “I’ve worked the best deal I can with Mr Right! He can’t kill me, nor can he intrude on my ocean. I don’t need anything else from him, currently.”

“The Internation organisation will be forced to reconsider the terms of your contract should this treatment persist-”

Brigs fired a bazooka that exploded into sheep. The sheep rammed, battered, and soaked up the enemy fire as they multiplied.

Isaac sighed, “There you go again Brigs, making decisions on your own. You should have at least allowed me time to point out that it was the Ints attacking me. I don’t see how I’ve gone against our agreement by budding shoulders with a few privateers.”

“Thing is Isaac, they know damn well how much you like to talk, they’re tryna get you to yammer on and on-”

“I was about to tell both of them to be quiet, when the monkey returned. He burst out from the amorphous blob of wool and spun his stick for the nearest enemy. Unluckily for him, that was Isaac.

The fomorian was struck once in the head, then harder in the gut, before a blade grew from his copper forearm and met the staff. The two engaged in a short melee, one that might have gone on for longer had I not intervened.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The monkey had kept an eye on me, recalling my stasis beam he dodged it. I of course wasn’t aiming for him. From my prone position, I managed to pull a remnant of the roof down onto the ape. Isaac took the opportunity to aim with his arm and fire a line of pressurized water through the apes stunned head.

I let out a proverbial sigh of relief just before a lyndon mechsuit breached the line and opened fire on our group. I tugged Brigs out from his crouched position, using Cre-umha as a shield. Our rate of fire was abysmal, the momentary encounter with the enemy unit had destroyed any flow the two had going.

Isaac rocketed into the mech suit, leaving me and Brigs to form a plan.

“Holy mother ‘a granny’s dirty nutsack! John, how the hell are we gettin’ outta this one?”

My string did not know, it had been fighting for survival, and so it was taking a moment to think of a way to escape. Yet, naturally, it had planned for an event like this.

“Trust me,” I said, not wanting to possibly reveal my idea to the Ints.

Brigs nodded and followed me as I threw my limp body over toppled shelves, sheep, and sheets of steel.

I found the water beneath the cover, and below that I found our submarine. We used this vehicle to reach Isaac’s kingdom, to recruit him to our cause while the Ints were trying to lower tensions between the king and the maker of machines.

It would serve well enough today. I entered the main chamber through a flexi-screen porthole, synced so that only select individuals could enter. I towed Brigs in after me.

“Save your breath. There is little to no oxygen here.” I should have kept it properly stocked on air and fuel, but for now, it would not help us escape.

Above water, Isaac Cre-umha was sustaining multiple injuries from his brawl with the agents, his exposed arms prickled with bullets. His fomorian excellence meant it would not hamper him in the long run, but for the time being he was in trouble.

Things got worse as the sheep caught fire, and another Unit intercepted him. This one my string, watching from the single, grainy, remaining camera, recognised the from Alaska. It was the weed of wonder, a spindly inhuman creature that had grown from the spirits of the damned and a common tumble weed.

It’s body was balled up, bounding without assumption over the strange horrors about it. Isaac sliced it in half with water, killing the Unit. He knew that wasn’t enough however and started dowsing the flames too late. A fragment of the tumble weed met the fire and caught alight, a ghastly thorny visage erupted from the black flames and consumed the warehouse.

“I have killed Gods,” it said, “I will finish the rest. Such is the demon’s oath.”

Isaac took a look at the destruction, the Ints searching inside the complex gasping in the flames, and RO carriers circling back over head. “Keep working at it old soldier, I’m sure, someday, you’ll meet an end fitting your auspicious self. But I don’t think we have a part in all that, really.”

He dipped into the water.

I had managed to get the sub moving, and the passage to open. The pressure of the below ground gate opening sucked us and Isaac out as the shot thorns of brimstone into the water. The sub rattled as its walls scrapped and gave out. I had a vague idea, being the designer of the sub, how much damage it could take. I knew that it would explode not far off the shore.

Sure enough it did. The ints watched as the weed of wonders smokestack was joined by a jet of foam.

Meanwhile, the Living Legs was content with spreading terror to the cleaners transporting him.

“Be afraid! Be afraid! Be afraid.”

The Ints lughed as the robot lay motionless, its legs held straight by coils of sub-terrainium. They reached a stoplight, radioing in with the rest of their team.

“Casualties in the forties currently, no Unit casualties on our side. The craft the Circuit Board were escaping on was destroyed, the bodies are yet to be recovered. Command is checking for possible interference from the Gator.”

The Cleaners logged off, breaking procedure, they spoke to the living legs. “How d’you like that you screamin’ terror?”

The Living Legs shouted lounder, “Be afraid! Once I am free, the world will know TRUE TERROR. For I am that which goes bump in the night, that which man fears most! I am a mirror! I am a shadow! I am... The Living Legs! How will four to three blue collar workers escape such terror? How will they defeat those what greater men tried, and failed, to best!”

“Ralph, stop talking to that thing, or find a way to shut it up, it’s making me antsy.” This pleased the Living Legs very much.

Another man laughed, “Are you ‘terrorfied’?”

The other cleaners laughed along, but that man, gripping the wheel with clammy hands. “No, Alan. I’m just worried about the other guys showing up. Boston Red, Sym-29.”

“I don’t know, from what I heard they’re out. The informant said he met with Sym in a foreign country, that’s one of the reasons we launched the attack now, we knew where they were, and we knew they were weak.”

Another spoke up, “I mean, the difference is seven to five guys, they couldn’t have been that big a deal if two of our units could take them out.”

I was listening intently. For another clue as to how they’d found us out, but they went back to laughing at how silly it was that we were still called the circuit board seven when there were only five of us. They are, of course wrong. There has at most been six. The circuit is yet to be complete.

I ordered Isaac to move in, having tracked the Living Legs for some time now.

Me and Brigs waited for them in a parking lot. Naturally, I’d never expected to escape by sea. The passageway for the sub connected with a sewage system, one I had kept a mental note of since moving in.

We jumped ship, reliable Isaac caught up to us and swam for the hatch. Brigs was out of breath, but he’d be fine. I got to work making sure of that.

“No survivors, Isaac.” The king complied.

Brigs did not remember the sheep, vengeful spirits, or monkeys. He recalled a fight, and not much more.

“Hey, legs, what do you think the plan is?”

“To spread terror!”

Brigs waved a hand at him, “Generally, yeah. But I’m talkin’ long term. Or, maybe short term. Mid-term? Ahh, fuck it, doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters! It’s the narrative arc! The build up to the final scare, that counts!”

“Where are you getting this crap from? What sorta videos you watching on that thing? Ah nevermind. I’ll be straight with ya, murder bot, I’m not sure what the point is anymore. I get we’re gonna take Right down but all this stuff in between, it’s... kinda nonsense you know? Makes me wonder if John’s making it up as he goes.”

An announcement sounded from the speaker above them. “Captain Brigs please come to terminal 1.”

He looked up, then Isaac approached from behind. “That’ll be J-on. I thought perhaps we’d be pirating an aircraft, but perhaps this subtler approach is better. Oh, Brigs, while I have you, man to man, would you mind explaining what this string of digits that seller handed me is for? I realise of course that it’s a means of communication, but I don’t know whether It’s for the e-mail or the internet.”

Brigs took a look at the slip, wearing a sour face. “It’s her phone number. Am I surrounded by kooks?”

Isaac laughed, “Perhaps my good man, but never mind that, American woman, would they commit to a man with multiple wives.”

“Probably not.”

“Not even a super-rich foreign king?”

“I dunno, I never got women.”

Isaac sighed, looking over the note in his hand, “I suppose me and Sandra Moore the apparel seller are of two different worlds. A forlorn, passing romance. Reminds me of the witch and the king, that old tale.”

Brigs was about to ask further. I, again, made the announcement.

He arrived at the plane, making his way past the originally scheduled pilot, and donned a spare uniform.

I gave him a thumbs up as he made the announcement for in first class.

They didn’t seem at all excited to a see a scarred, stubble haired brute piloting for them. Of course, I’d be the one flying, I just needed someone with flesh and bones to make the announcements, to be scrutinised.

“Uhm, this is your captain speaking, but you can probably already tell that, because I’m, obviously, a captain. Unless you're at the back ‘a the plane, then you probably can’t see me too well. Uh, were gonna be flying over, France, I think? Then, uh, Afghanistan, and then... Germany, yeah, Germany. That’ll get us over to eastern Europe to a little country called Romania. That’s where we’ll be going. Today. In, like, twenty hours. Maybe more.”

He continued to stumble through his lines, as I checked our target destination. A few months prior, I’d let Sym of the proverbial leash. For members such as the Gator, the Living Legs, I’d always been careful to keep them under control, installing trackers in each of them.

Sym needed to be shooed away so that he could complete his part of the circuit. Even if he didn’t know it, by going out into the world and experiencing new things, he was becoming the person I needed to destroy Axel Right.

By my String’s estimation, he’d have gone to Romania, where we have a client of sorts. I’d kept my eyes of him, and placed them on Axel and his move to Ireland.

As Sym’s location came to light, horror struck my String. I had not comprehended, I did not know why I was so afraid.

Even now, I shudder, in all my infinite form. I quease at the thought of allowing my former disciple to go to such an inhospitable, and tortuous land, but still I let him wander into the dark forest, like a prodigal son experiencing life’s worst.

My String tried to form a plan of how to move forward, how to save Sym from his fate, but all seemed hopeless. Any other country, My String would have chanced gaining the ire of the Mladnets or the Mountain, but fate wasn’t so kind.

Sym had wandered in his godless pilgrimage to a country devoid of Units, a place where all the vengeful spirits, humanoid filth, and other such phenomena had fallen null.

He went to mainland Greece. And I was afraid to follow after him, into the land of the shadow beast.