CHAPTER SEVEN

A New Mystery Unfolds

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Bethany and Crow-Man exchanged glances before she picked up the remote on her desk and pointed it at the flat screen that dominated the room’s right-side wall.

The screen came to life and showed the gathering of heroes a recording of a small prison cell barely lit by the light lining the corners of its ceiling. Three people were squished together in the cell; Crow-Man and Bethany to one side, while on the other, with his back pressed against the wall, was a gaunt-looking man with wild eyes who wore a straitjacket over his prison uniform.

“He grew his hair,” Sam noticed.

It was a weird thing to notice, but the last time Sam saw the Trickster the villain had a very bald look that gave him a more sinister appearance than this beggar he was cosplaying as.

The Trickster on the screen looked sick too. His clothes hung off him like they were a size or two too big. Wavy pumpkin-colored hair had grown out of a head that had once been as bald as a bowling ball to frame a gaunt face whose eyes seemed wrapped in dark circles.

“You’ve grown hair,” came Crow-Man’s voice from the TV’s speakers.

Sam couldn’t help grinning since Crow-Man also made a big deal of the Trickster’s new hairstyle.

“Like it?” TV Trickster’s voice was raspier than Sam remembered. “Might grow a mullet while I’m in this fancy room they’ve got me in… At least until I decide to leave.”

“You’re never getting out of here, Trickster.”

The Crow-Man on TV verbally threatened the Trickster while the villain cackled in response. Based on what Sam saw back at the Met, this was their usual foreplay, the kind that usually ended in fisticuffs.

“This Trickster guy’s insane, right?” Ice Brand asked.

“Must be,” Miracle Girl agreed. “Taunting Crow-Man — you’d have to be crazy to do that.”

Crow-Man cleared his throat, though it sounded to everyone like a growl, causing the banter to die down instantly.

“Have you heard from our little healer?” TV Trickster’s question caused Sam’s fingers to tighten on his chair’s armrest. “I hear he’s had a spot of trouble recently…murderous cats and vengeful dogs and ancient dragons. He-he-he… sounds positively fun!”

Sam raised an eyebrow at the screen while Thunder leaned toward him.

“He knows about our quest for the golden fleece…” she whispered.

This should have been impossible to know because very few people knew what the crew of the Argo VII had been up to this past month. Not even Superion, who looked at his cousin with renewed interest, knew how she’d been cured of the Blight. The only way for the Trickster to learn what transpired during the mission was if someone from outside had whispered this to him.

In a louder voice, Thunder said, “He knows about our mission…”

“Yes.” Bethany paused the recording. “We don’t know how, but the Trickster was kept updated on your…activities.”

Sam had a strange feeling that Bethany had wanted to say ‘troublemaking’ but refrained from doing so. He let it go because there was a far bigger worry on his mind.

With creasing brow, he asked, “How does he know and why would he care…?”

“We don’t know,” Bethany admitted. “As for the why—”

“You beat him,” Crow-Man finished for her. “Now he’s got his sights set on returning the favor.”

“Which would be impossible since he’s still locked up, right?” Sam confirmed.

The silence caused his brow to furrow some more.

“R-Right…?”

“Keep watching,” Crow-Man suggested.

There was more banter on the screen; mostly the Trickster mocking his visitors to the point that Crow-Man picked him up by the scruff of his collar and then slammed the villain against the room’s back wall.

“Crow!” TV Bethany yelled in warning while the Trickster cackled in Crow-Man’s face. “So quick to violence. It’s a wonder that people think you’re a hero.”

“No games, Trickster,” TV Crow-Man growled. “Why did you call me here?”

“I told you…I wanted to…chat,” TV Trickster managed to say despite Crow-Man’s tight hold on his throat.

“What do we have to chat about?” TV Crow-Man pressed.

Despite the deep frown on his face, the Crow-Man on the screen visibly slackened his grip on the villain.

TV Trickster coughed, and then coughed more before saying, “…I’ve got a prophecy for you, Crow.”

“You’re not a seer,” TV Crow-Man growled.

“One doesn’t need to be a seer to receive divine revelation every once in a while.” TV Trickster cackled. His laughter was cut short, and everyone watching the screen saw the sudden change in the villain’s demeanor. “Don’t you want to hear it?”

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TV Crow-Man’s grunt was his only response—to which Ice Brand commented, “The sound recording in that cell is amazing. I can hear everything very clearly…”

“Weird thing to focus on, Jin Oppa,” Miracle Girl said before she shushed him.

TV Trickster lacked Farsight’s flare for mysticism, but the ghostly voice they heard on screen left little doubt in their minds. This was a real prophecy.

“The curse of pride will surely rise, to slay the gods and darken skies,” TV Trickster rhymed ominously. “Calamity comes to the land of the dead, while the world above meets misery and dread.”

Bethany paused the recording, and an ominous silence filled the air of the chief’s office. It was a silence that Miracle Girl eventually shattered when she asked, “Anyone here know what that psycho’s talking about?”

Sam recalled an old saying he’d once heard at Saturday temple. Of all the twisted emotions that gave birth to fearsome horrors, pride must surely be the mightiest of all.

He didn’t need to say it out loud though. He could tell from their expressions that everyone was thinking the same thing.

But what kind of pride could slay the gods? Sam wondered, to which Chiron answered inside his head, What do you think, kid?

Sam sighed. “It’s another elder giant… isn’t it?”

All eyes turned on him.

“That makes sense,” Thunder agreed. “We’ve faced two of them so far, although these were only shadow versions of the real thing… But if this prophecy is about an actual elder giant rising from—”

“The land of the dead?” Ice Brand supplied.

Thunder’s expression darkened when she turned to face Sam. “Do you think it’s connected to the package Medea stole from us?”

Sam had felt the power of the Golden Fleece firsthand as it had temporarily turned him into an omega-level healer so he could cure Thunder of the Blight that cursed her. If there was a relic capable of bringing one of the Gigantes back from the land of the dead then the fleece was certainly a top contender.

“We need to get in touch with Farsight and the others. See if they’ve tracked the, um, package yet,” Sam answered.

He was hesitant to say anything more with so many ears listening in.

“Looks like these two have a secret they don’t want us to hear,” Miracle Girl commented after another moment of dead air, prompting Ice Brand to elbow her in the arm. “You need to learn to be more tactful, MG.”

“Just saying,” she replied.

Miracle Girl winked at Sam, making him sigh.

“Can’t we just ask the Trickster about his prophecy some more?” Superion asked, adding, “I haven’t tangled with him myself, but from what Crow-Man’s told me about him, this villain doesn’t strike me as someone who’d lie when the truth is so…”

“Bat shit crazy?” Miracle Girl supplied.

“That’s the word I’d use for this.” Bethany glanced in Sam’s direction. “In any case, we’ll need an expert to verify this prophecy’s authenticity.”

“Farsight should know,” Sam agreed. “But I still don’t get why the Fates would bless the Trickster with a prophecy?”

“Who says it’s his?” Thunder argued. “He could just be repeating words he’d heard from someone else.”

“Which leads us to our other problem.” Bethany unpaused the recording. “Here’s proof that the Trickster wasn’t working alone…”

The room in the video shook, and that’s when the recording cut out.

“I remember that quake,” Ice Brand said.

“Jin Oppa and I were assisting with a prison transfer on the third sub-level when shit went down,” Miracle Girl explained.

“Keep watching.” Bethany pressed a button on her remote and activated a second video recording. “This is where it gets interesting.”

The new recording showed off a round hall similar to the one Sam and Thunder had fallen into after Barbelle’s explosion. However, while the administrator’s floor had polished stone walls and a parquet floor, this other hall was made entirely of craggy obsidian rock with veins of lava appearing along the walls.

“This is the elevator hall for the fourth sub-level,” she explained.

Looking at the intimidating décor, Sam guessed the fourth sub-level was a bad spot to be in, and he said as much.

“It’s where we lock up the criminally insane along with people cursed by the gods,” Bethany explained.

Miracle Girl whistled. “Wow, a whole floor for freaks just like the Trickster. Sounds fun.”

“MG, you’re not supposed to say the ‘F’ word anymore,” Ice Brand scolded.

On the screen, Bethany and Crow-Man—with an unconscious Trickster hoisted over his shoulder—faced off against a villain Sam recognized from a news alert he’d seen a year ago. The same news alert where Superion had nearly been killed by the alpha-level villain, “Bloodfyre!”

All their gazes snapped toward Superion whose narrowed eyes fixed on the pale-skinned, white-haired woman in the loose red robe with ends that dragged against the floor. The video cut out again while Bloodfyre slashed at Crow-Man with the red saber she carried.

“You didn’t stop her,” Superion assumed.

“I’m not you,” Crow-Man replied flatly.

“Sorry.” Superion’s hand rose to his chest while an expression of imagined pain flitted across his face. “I couldn’t stop her completely either.”

“So, Bloodfyre took the Trickster from you?” Thunder guessed.

“We got away from her at first, but there were too many villains on the third sub-level, and she caught up to us in the end,” Bethany answered.

“She took the Trickster and escaped before we could catch them,” Crow-Man added.

“The red pillar we saw from the transport…that was Bloodfyre’s doing,” Thunder realized.

“A red pillar?” Superion’s brow furrowed. “Oh, you’re talking about her ‘Bloody Tree’ aren’t you?”

“Bloody Tree?” Sam repeated.

“That’s what she calls this thing Bloodfyre creates when she reshapes a huge amount of blood into these giant red veins that look like they’re branches of a tree rising into the sky,” Superion explained.

“Makes sense,” Ice Brand weighed in. “Lots of blood got spilled in the Crucible during the start of the breakout.”

“But why would she take the Trickster?” Sam’s fingers tightened on the armrest of his seat once more. “What does she want from him?”

“We don’t know,” Crow-Man answered. “But you and I are going to find out.”

Right on cue, a new mission notification popped up in front of Sam.

RECAPTURE THE CRUCIBLE’S ESCAPED CONVICTS.

Below this one was a second pop-up that puzzled Sam until he realized what it implied.

CONVICTS CAPTURED: 0/37

Sam had several missions on his docket: rescuing Serena, reclaiming the Golden Fleece, finding the Trident of Atlantis, and his secret fourth labor. However, this new addition seemed more urgent considering the number flashing on the notification.

“Um, just wondering here, but the Trickster isn’t the only prisoner who got away, was he?” Sam asked.

Warden Bethan confirmed his fears with another press of a button. Several photographs appeared on the screen. They were all mugshots of villains who wore the same white jumpsuit as the Crucible’s inmates.

“You’re right. The Trickster wasn’t the only one…” Bethany’s gaze moved from one hero’s face to another. She caught Sam’s eye last. “We don’t know how the rest of them got out, but in total, thirty-seven maximum-security prisoners escaped the Crucible…”

An ominous silence filled the air after hearing this piece of bad news, one that Miracle Girl ended with one perfect curse. “Fuck…”