AxEl thrummed his fingers on the side of the couch. He looked at the television, but there was nothing interesting on. He and Nook had decided to pay the bills that came in regularly, just to keep up appearances, but it seemed that the channels that the old man enjoyed weren’t that interesting.

AxEl waited impatiently as the morning stretched on. Nook was supposed to have been at the professor’s house early so that they could get their newly expanded business sorted out, but instead he was left by himself.

Annoyed, AxEl called up Anagen.

“Hello?” answered a voice from the other side.

“Anagen? Have you heard from Nook?” asked AxEl, though his voice sounded a bit more urgent than he thought.

“No? Perhaps he’s still not awake yet? You and your friend are students after all,” Anagen answered.

“I know Nook, he wouldn’t be sleeping this late. If you haven’t seen him, I guess I’ll have to look around myself,” AxEl said and then closed the call. He got off the couch and put on his jacket, opening the door to the house and walked down the street.

All the streets seemed quiet this hour, and the scenery didn’t have the same brightness that AxEl had come to expect out of Barksight. He saw some flickering light from the far away Burnbark trees, though they did nothing to comfort him.

Over at the Cran household, AxEl knocked on the door. Nook’s father answered, eyeing AxEl up with a familiarity that he remembered.

“How are you, my boy? Something you need?” he asked AxEl.

“Nothing much, sir. I just haven’t seen Nook around much,” AxEl answered.

“He left for school this morning. You’ll find him there.”

“Really? Thanks.”

“No problem,” he finally said and turned to close the door, but a moment before he looked at AxEl and said, “you should head over there, as well. You’ll need that diploma,” and then finally turned it.

AxEl stood there on the porch, but found himself not as calmed as he should have been. School, maybe he was in class or something, he thought to himself and went over there to check himself. His steps got ahead of him and he began to jog a bit, bursting through the doors of the school and down the hall.

If I remember his classes correctly, and he turned to look through the door window. Nook wasn’t inside. In fact, the seat that he usually took seemed to be empty at the moment. AxEl walked out of the school unsettled. He took out his phone once more and dialed up Nook’s number, but no answer came once more.

Again he checked with Anagen, but she had nothing to do with it. He checked his own house, any of their hangout locations, but despite it all, he couldn’t find Nook anywhere in the entire town.

AxEl’s breath became more ragged, and he began to worry. The morning turned to evening, then to night and still nothing came to him. He returned to his house once more and was about to deploy his entire staff to search out the town when he noticed another letter on the kitchen counter.

He shot over to it and clutched it in his hands. It looked exactly like the one he had gotten before. Anagen, he thought as he ripped open the covering. Inside was another plain letter, this one containing another, newer address.

He dialed up Anagen in that immediate moment, running out of his home as he did so.

“What is it, AxEl?” she asked on the other end.

“What did you do with Nook?”

“What do you-”

“If you’ve done anything to him, I won’t forgive you, Anagen!” he threatened her. She stayed silent for a few moments.

“AxEl….Did you get another letter?” Anagen asked.

“So it was you!”

“No it wasn’t, AxEl. If you’ve received another letter…that means DoxEn knows where you live,” she told AxEl. AxEl only kept on the call long enough to tell her where he’d be going.

Immediately he ran into the house once more and found nothing. He looked into every room, every closet, every nook and corner, but found everything where it was supposed to be.

He didn’t find his mother anywhere, however. He dialed her up instead and when he heard her on the other end, AxEl was relieved.

“Something wrong, honey?” she asked.

“No, no….No, I’m good, mom.”

“Do you need anything?” FenEl asked him, her voice soothing. AxEl looked around at the house and once more at the letter in his hands, clutching it tightly.

“I’m having friends over for a party. Could you let me have the place. For tonight at least?” AxEl asked. FenEl’s silence over the phone made his heart beat harder.

“Sure, AxEl. Just have everything cleaned by the time I get home, okay?” his mother asked and AxEl sat down against the wall.

“Yeah, I’ll clean it all up. Bye, mom,” but he didn’t wait for a response. Instead he pocketed his phone and followed the directions given to him by the letter.

****

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

AxEl saw everything in front of him. He was using Prophecy. He had been for the past half hour in fact. He needed the assurance it brought him, the visions that would tell him of what was coming for him.

The night had risen, and light from the Burnbark trees was at its fullest. AxEl walked around some warehouses and abandoned buildings, feeling the sights in front of him stay steady. Nothing changed in his vision as he passed each one, intent on finding out where Nook was kept.

There, in his vision he heard voices. Silent and distant, but he heard them. AxEl walked around one of the warehouses on the left, hearing the sound in his visions increase as he began to hear them in the present.

He found what looked like holes for a ladder to be put in. While they’d been ripped off, it didn’t mean that AxEl was completely helpless. He took out a single blunt of Firewire, something that he had BannIh make for him.

He smoked the entire blunt, hiding his coughs as best as he could. He pushed it down and felt extreme heat in his body. He looked up towards the buildings and saw what looked to be a large distance to climb.

AxEl lunged up, grabbing at the edge closest to him, pulling himself up and onto the ledge. From there, he climbed onto the next, and then the next until finally making it on top of the roof above the buildings. The light shone upon him in the night, and he moved towards the sunroof of the building that he thought the voices had come from.

There, looking down upon them, AxEl saw some men surrounding a short bald boy tied to a chair. AxEl’s friend, Nook Cran, was down there, and there were guns aimed towards him. AxEl’s heart beat accelerated, and he took out another blunt. While he smoked it, he heard people arguing down below.

“He’ll be here. You do your jobs and you’ll get paid whatever I promised you. Until then, keep your voices down!” DoxEn scolded them from his position near the entrance of the building.

“You said that he would be here soon enough. What if he isn’t? What if he doesn’t care about this guy?” Another one of the men said, lifting Nook’s face up with his gun. AxEl saw the condition they had placed him in and he winced. Nook seemed to have bruises on his face, his lip was cracked and he looked to be shivering in the clothes he was given. Another cloth was wrapped around his mouth, stopping him from uttering a word.

AxEl threw the blunt to the side, heaved a breath and jumped down through the sunroof. DoxEn and his men immediately looked up to stare at the figure who burst through the glass, but when he landed, DoxEn’s face turned into one of disgust and anger.

“SHOOT HIM!” he ordered his men, but AxEl covered Nook with his entire body. With the amount that he’d taken in that instant, he felt that his body was stinging from all the bullets, but they didn’t do anything more than annoy him. He waited for a moment while they reloaded, then shoved something into Nook’s mouth and whispered, “chew.”

He still had his Prophecy on, so he lunged towards the first person who was about to fire again. He took the man’s weapons from his grips easily, punching him so hard across the face that he knocked out a few teeth and fell to the ground. AxEl threw the weapon at DoxEn, knocking him to the ground with a grunt.

He moved to another, but the bullets sting became a bit more painful. Biting back the pain, he dodged to the side and kicked the second guard. His weapon left his arms, but he brought out a knife. He slashed at AxEl a few times, but with Prophecy, dodging it was easy. He then turned the knife back on the man and stabbed it into his legs.

Behind his back, the other men began to fire, and AxEl held his hands up in his face. He couldn’t see anything normally, but he still ran towards the visions that he saw. They threw their arms at him once they ran out of bullets, and they stumbled him up. One of the men punched him in the stomach and AxEl fell to his knees, seeing another tighten a cloth around his head.

He grabbed at the cloth, but his hands were restrained by the first man. Instead, he twisted and fell free of his bonds. He kicked at one of the men and threw him a bit backwards as the first one tried to wrap a cloth around his head again. AxEl grabbed at him and threw him into someone else. More men started shooting at him and AxEl felt his skin crack and bleed as the bullets riddled him.

They won’t break through you, they won’t. AxEl popped more Prophecy and Firewire into his mouth, then ran into the crowd without any regard. He blitzed through his foes, taking a new wound on each one. He’d disarm one, kick another, then throw the third back onto the first person.

Finally, after taking out the last remaining guard that was there, AxEl plunged a fist into his face and knocked him out. The man spat blood onto the floor, leaving AxEl heaving on top of him. He was breathing deeply, his clothes sticky with sweat and sometimes blood. AxEl felt at the side of his head and realized he’d been bleeding from a bullet that had grazed him.

When he looked back to find DoxEn, he saw the man approach Nook with a speed that was unrivaled. AxEl’s heart raced once more and he stood up to tackle DoxEn out of the way. They both tumbled together in a heap and came to a stop near some old wooden boxes.

DoxEn was the first to stand up. He picked up one of the planks from the debris and hit AxEl across the face, causing him to moan in pain. AxEl looked up to dodge the next, but his Prophecy chose the wrong moment to run out as he took the next hit. DoxEn kept hitting him, somehow knowing where he was going to be. He has Prophecy, a voice inside him said, and AxEl believed, no matter how grim that would make his situation.

“You stupid,” he hit him, “childish,” he hit him again, “insufferable,” And one last time as the wood cracked and AxEl’s nose bent unnaturally, “CHILD!”

DoxEn’s hand gripped AxEl’s hair and brought him up to face the man. “You’ve ruined everything! Everything I’ve built!” and he slammed his head down onto the ground again.

AxEl didn’t even bring his hands up to defend himself, he just kept heaving as DoxEn finally stood up from him.

“I’m going to take back everything that you owe me, piece by piece.”

AxEl heard him bring out another plank from the pile, and DoxEn resumed the beating. He dodged half-heartedly, but managed to avoid a single smash, something that surprised him. Looking into DoxEn’s eyes, AxEl saw that even he looked disoriented, his irises unfocused.

Maybe… he thought to himself as DoxEn took another hit. AxEl looked to the side and saw the man with the knife in his leg. He could reach over, almost… But when he did so, DoxEn knocked his arm aside and slammed the wood into his neck.

Then, when the next hit came down, AxEl dodged and grabbed DoxEn’s arms. With his free hand, he reached for the knife and pulled it out of the man’s leg, but DoxEn freed himself. AxEl slashed wildly, not looking as he felt the blade cut through something.

When he opened his eyes, he saw DoxEn on top of him, clutching at his throat. No… DoxEn fell to the side from AxEl, holding his throat as blood began to fill his mouth. He looked at AxEl with disdain in his eyes, his face scrunched up in anger and hate. AxEl stood up and dropped the knife, backing away from the writhing body in front of him.

He kept shuffling back as more and and more of DoxEn’s own blood sprayed out from the wound and the wild motions continued. Finally, however, they stilled and so did AxEl. He tried not taking a breath in fear of it somehow reviving the man and taking revenge on him.

That was until he heard the door to the building open and a woman walk in. Anagen showed concern on her face that grew into full blown worry once the amount of blood in the room became apparent. Her eyes darted between everyone in the room, glazing past AxEl.

He felt guilt as she did, and was glad when she passed over him not soon after.

“A-AxEl, what happened here?” she asked, and a soft whine came from the bound up man on the floor. In his haze, he’d forgotten about the fact that Nook was still awake on the floor. They both rushed towards him and turned him over, taking the cloth out of his mouth.

“AxEl, that was amazing! You were a one-man army! They didn’t even get a chance to use their own Magic Bullets! You took out everyone by yourself, yo-” Nook paused, then looked at the corpse behind them. “You….fuck.”