“Frankenstein. Clearing.”
Next thing I knew, I wasn’t on the Isle of Heroes any more. I was disoriented and a little nauseous, but I did a good job of hiding it. I hoped that I did at least. Unlike the last time I met with Order, I didn’t find myself in a desert. I was in a clearing in a forest, the soft sunlight hitting my face in a manner that wasn’t unpleasant.
I was also surrounded.
I counted about eight of them–assuming there weren’t more hidden in the forest. They were dressed in all black military suits, with plain silver exoskeletons like deceptively thin lines, growing out of the chest plates and snaking around the arms, legs, and stomach.. Their faces were covered by gas masks which didn’t help my confidence.
If even the air in this place wasn’t safe, I couldn’t imagine what was in store for me.
I tried to keep my face neutral and my mind racing. They didn’t seem like they were holding any weapons, but that was probably because they didn’t need them. They were likely Order’s people, which meant that if he was really out, then he wasn’t strong enough to face me himself.
The only issue was that I didn’t know how to escape this situation. The fact that I wasn’t dead meant that they clearly wanted something from me but even so, I didn’t have any power here.
I didn’t dare make the first move in this situation, and they didn’t either. We were at a standstill until what looked and felt like a small meteor landed at the edge of the clearing.
Dust, dirt, and I didn’t want to imagine what else flew toward us, and suddenly the gas masks made more sense. Through the dust I could barely make out a black and silver blur rushing towards me, and I dodged before it tore me from limb to limb.
The blur stopped in front of me as well, in the calm revealing itself to be a balding, blonde man dressed in an outfit similar to the others’, except his had a dark grey belt with many vials of a green potion–a potion that I swear I could faintly hear hissing. He had only a single blue eye, the other one being run over by a deep scar.
“The infamous Frankenstein!” he said in an unexpectedly high pitched voice. “The Overlord has talked a lot about you! Quite the extraordinary figure you make. Quite, quite, quite, quite. Quite!”
Overlord? He likely meant Order. The alias I knew him under he had come up with on a whim, that much was clear, but Overlord didn’t seem right either. For all his gloating and arrogance, our brief meeting didn’t give me, well, Overlord vibes.
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It was an odd thing to say, for sure, but he was a seemingly ageless man if his pictures at the base we discovered were any indication. They were from the late nineties and he had barely aged since then.
Order, Overlord, they were all false identities, aliases. His true identity, and intentions were his alone. That wasn’t useful information at the moment, but it could prove handy–provided I made it out of here alive.
“I wouldn’t call myself infamous,” I said with a small bow. “I can’t deny, however, the show of power here. May I ask who you are?”
“I’m the Overlord’s most trusted servant. Trusted. Trusted. Trusted,” he said with a wide smile. “But it is not I we are here to discuss, is it? No, no, no. It is you, and your mighty declarations. Although it didn’t look like there was much actual force behind them, was there?”
I barely held back a grimace. “You think I lost?” I said with a chuckle that hopefully sounded more sincere than it felt. “Kill me then.”
He–the Servant I assumed–gasped audibly at that. “No, no, no, no. NO!” he all but shrieked at me, getting uncomfortably close before backing away again. “Tell me where the master is first. Then we’ll talk.”
I raised my eyebrow at that, a shit eating smile I couldn’t bother to hide. “You mean you don’t know where he is? I thought I was supposed to meet him.”
“Change of plans, he says. His servant shall now do his bidding and bring him. Surprise him. To his old prison he says, but never have I ever been there. You have. He spoke of it. Tell me where he is, tell me, tell me, tell-”
“I will,” I said simply. “As long as I am taken back to my headquarters and you come with me.” I pointed at him. “I don’t know how to take you. But I can take you to the person who can. How did you get me here, how does that work?” His goons prepared themselves for conflict as he moaned at the sky.
“Names,” he said simply. “Names of people or locations you need, the witch does that.”
Truth be told, I didn’t want to do this either. Because while all of this–his idiocy, the way the teleporting works–made my life relatively easy, it also didn’t leave me with a lot of options. It was in my luckiness that I was unlucky, and I couldn’t complain about that, not in good faith.
Rosita and her cousin were out of the question. I couldn’t teleport to them. They were both back on the island, and we didn’t want to attract any attention. As for Iron Jaw, the prison was a strictly forbidden place. Until the air cleared at least.
Which meant there was only one person I could go to.
“Fine. We’ll go,” he said like a small child. I briefly found myself thinking about Rosita’s cousin again. A fool, although even he wasn’t as mad as this one. We only freed him because he had power. Not just strength, but also followers. People that we could use. I would wager that this one was limited to pure strength.
“Good,” I said simply. “Contact the old lady. And tell her to take us to Crisis.”