Suleman was brought near the northern edge of the city by Esparza, who handed him a ceremonial-looking cape. “Huntmaster’s garb, for special occasions. Can’t have you looking like too much of a shambles the first time you meet Torch in the flesh, right?”
Suleman struggled to put on the cape. “This seems a little short-notice, don’t you think? Shouldn’t they visit me before making their big public entrance? To make sure that things are in order for a ceremony? That’s how things are normally done, I think.”
Esparza shrugged and grinned. “Oh, where’s the fun in that? Just think of it like a surprise inspection, to see how you’ve been doing for the five hours you’ve been here. Torch has business here, and this is just a pit stop for them.”
“H… How do you know all this? I wasn’t informed about what they plan to do here, why were you?”
Esparza gave Suleman an exasperated, condescending glare. “You think I got this job by putting in overtime? I’ve got connections, and that’s all you really need to know.” They slapped Suleman uncomfortably hard in the chest. “I’m sure you’ve got this. Don’t make too big a fool out of yourself, and you most likely won’t be fired on your first day. Nothing big.” They stepped away and gestured at the assembly of Servants growing nearby. “But now, you’ve got cats to herd. I’ll be watching!” And with that, they vanished into the crowd.
-
The entire city was filing out to greet Torch, it seemed. Mark and Waia were swept up in the growing crowd of Servants as they rolled towards the highway leading in from the north, like a very slow stampede.
Mark glanced over his shoulder. The rear of the crowd was apparently being backed up by the half of the Servants’ stock of vehicles, with the entire road being taken up with the same military-grade armor that he had seen the Servants with before. However, he noticed that behind the tanks and APCs, the additional vehicles were much more ramshackle, with machine guns mounted from the sunroofs of civilian cars plated with improvised armor.
The crowd was parted in two via copious gesturing and shouting by an elderly, caped individual standing in the middle of the road, with each half being directed to stand in a two-person-deep line on either side of the road. The flow of the crowd pulled Mark and Waia to the left-hand line, where they ended up standing near the halfway point of the procession, right at the back. The Servants who found their place in line quickly stood to attention, which was immediately mirrored by Mark. Waia, meanwhile, took a moment to get the posture right, and began to fidget almost immediately.
The old man in the cape, who was giving Mark an inexplicable sense of déjà-vu, walked down the fifteen-foot-wide aisle of Servants, glancing along the lines to make sure everyone was adequately arrayed. He finally came to rest at the end of the aisle furthest from the city’s edge, standing with his arms behind his back in front of the numerous vehicles which now formed the rear line of the procession. “Alright, everyone! Best behavior!”
With everyone now in line, the hundreds-strong crowd stood still and quiet, waiting for their leader’s promised arrival. The waiting took a bit longer than planned. People started to get antsy, standing to attention for so long.
Somehow, nobody noticed the sound of an approaching helicopter until it had almost already landed. The skeletal cargo helicopter descended upon the wide-open street with a shipping container affixed to its ribcage-like underside. While the vehicle gingerly touched down and turned the dusty street into a miniature sandstorm, a hooded figure with a longsword on their back stepped out of the passenger-side door and dropped to the ground while the helicopter was still a foot above the ground.
The helicopter touched down, released the container from its clamped-in position with a series of clicks, then promptly took back off with a curt gesture from the figure on the ground.
Once the wind had settled and the assembled Servants took their hands away from their faces, the figure drew their voluminous cloak around their body. “Greetings, Servants of Cuernavaca. I assume I need no introduction.”
Both lines of Servants erupted into ecstatic cheers, then began moving towards Torch from two sides. Once again, Mark and Waia were swept up in the tide, and found themselves trying not to get trampled as Torch was swarmed with the intensity of a superstar.
Torch silently pulled their cloak out of reach of the nearest Servants as people tried to touch them from all sides. They nodded at a nearby masked Huntsman, then waved the crowd to either side so that passage could be made for the Huntsman and several of his colleagues. A ring of bodyguards formed around Torch, which gestured for the crowd to give Torch plenty of space.
Waia found herself bumping up against one of the Huntsmen as she tried to get close to Torch under the cover of the crowd. She was about to shove the guard aside when she froze in her tracks. Torch was looking directly at her over the guard’s shoulder, the slit of their pearlescent mask boring into her like a single serpentine eye.
The guard shoved a paralyzed Waia back into the mass of Servants, and Torch looked away.
The other caped person tried to yell above the dying-out cheers, and frantically waved the crowd back into the original position on either side of the road. Once his voice had already given out, the crowd of Servants complied and moved back to the edges.
The individual people weren’t quite in the same positions, however. Mark noticed that Waia was no longer next to him. He looked around the two lines of Servants for her, and managed to lock eyes with the Primus from across the street. He tried to gesture for her to join up with him while the last few Servants were still finding a place in line, but she shrugged at him and looked at the hoarse old man at the far side of the street from Torch, who was struggling to regain his composure.
Torch waved the Huntsman guards to go back to their original spots, then cleared their throat and spoke again. “Now that you have all regained control of yourselves, I would like to begin.”
They looked back at the shipping container behind them. “During my trip south to your outpost, my pilot and I managed to capture a rogue Primus, one of the thousand children of the Chinese Domain.”
Another round of cheering, but this one was thankfully much briefer and didn’t involve anyone leaving their spot. Once silence had been regained, Torch hesitantly continued. “I would prefer if silence was observed while I spoke. As I was about to say, my pilot was instructed to radio one of the city’s Chosen keepers in advance. They should be arriving soon.”
Torch went still as a statue after saying what they had wanted to say. Mark, along with many of the Servants around him, found their eyes drawn to the shipping container. A small portion of the container’s side was bulging outwards, the painted surface rippling like disturbed water.
Several Servants raised their arms and called out to gain Torch’s attention and pointed at the disturbance. Torch looked over their shoulder at the metal lump, which was now beginning to produce the sound of buckling metal. After a moment of staring, they began strolling towards the growing bulge. “Everyone present is to avert their eyes, this many people looking directly at a Primus is likely to grow to become a problem.”
They stopped in front of the bulge, which looked like it could burst apart at any moment. In a single deft motion, they unslung their sword from their back and buried it up to the crossguard in the metal. The bulge immediately retreated back into line with the rest of the container, as if it had never been pushed outwards in the first place.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Torch pulled their sword out of the container, which revealed a blade stained with streaks of gold. A pale blue light flickered in the vague resemblance of a pattern halfway up the blade, and the gold sloughed off and coagulated at Torch’s feet.
Once their sword was clean, Torch slung the sword over their back and looked at a truck slowly making its way through the wall of parked vehicles at the end of the street. Something was thrashing inside the trailer, making the wheeled box rock from side to side as it was pulled forward. Torch held a hand up, and the truck came to a halt.
Torch looked back at the shipping container. “I will make clear that I was unaware of the abilities possessed by the captive Primus, and while it is regrettable that the prisoner refused to accept execution in a more ceremonial manner, at least it was intelligent enough to not attempt to escape while airborne. Keep that Chosen on hand, however. It will soon see use regardless. Huntmaster.”
Suleman, who had been lost in thought while staring at the shaking trailer, snapped back to attention. “Y– A– Yes, m– uh, Torch.”
Torch strode over to where Suleman stood and produced a folder of documents. Suleman wasn’t sure where it had come from, or if Torch had just been holding it the whole time and he somehow hadn’t noticed. “All information regarding your directives as Huntmaster and how to accomplish them are contained herein. I am required elsewhere for the duration of this mission of yours, but I will be watching nonetheless.”
Once Suleman took the folder, Torch took a few steps around him, as if to continue along the street and into the city, before stopping and turning their head slightly to look back at the Huntmaster. “One more thing for you to be aware of: An additional Primus has recently infiltrated the ranks of your city. Unless you are apathetic towards such a weakness within your numbers, and unconcerned with the potentially catastrophic results of having a Primus among this many people, it is recommended that you remove the culprit before embarking upon the final stages of the Servants’ mission. You will note the rather strict deadlines within the documentation.”
Suleman stared down at the folder and stammered. “I– I don’t– How do you–?” But when he turned to try and look at Torch, all that remained of them was a few spots of blue on the edges of Suleman’s vision.
Suleman turned to the Servant who had climbed out of the truck transporting the Chosen. “I don’t know how long it takes to do safely, but I want that thing out here immediately.” He looked around at the Huntsmen scattered around the fringes of the bifurcated crowd. “Huntsmen, I don’t want a single person here to move an inch from where he’s standing, we’re finding this Primus now!”
The masked Huntsmen nodded and looked around at the rows of people close to them, unslinging their shotguns in preparation. Several more descended from their vantage points on the surrounding rooftops and emerged onto the street, peering at the lined-up crowd with their dark, alien goggles.
Waia looked around at the Huntsmen hemming in the civilian Servants. Coming close enough to Torch for them to see her had turned out to be an issue. But if they had recognized her, wouldn’t they have given Suleman identifying information?
Mark, meanwhile, looked all around the street for anything that he could use to get Waia away from danger. The extreme thinness of the crowd she was in made that a very difficult prospect.
The truck was slowly spun around in its spot just in front of the rest of the Servants’ vehicles, so that the back end of its trailer was pointed along the length of the two lines of people. Ten wheel clamps were removed from the truck’s passenger seat and fastened to each of the wheels of the truck and its trailer. While the clamps were being affixed, Mark began to hear a growing buzzing come from inside the trailer, one which instilled a hint of primal, unthinking fear inside him.
Once the truck was locked in place, the bolt holding the trailer’s doors shut was carefully removed and one of the doors was pulled open a sliver.
A bony, horse-sized insectoid creature burst from the trailer, only held in place by a chain affixed inside the trailer door, which threatened to rip the door from its hinges in its mission to hold the Chosen in place. The Chosen strained against the collar that still connected it to the truck, darting through the air on humming wings and nearly making the clamped-down truck topple over.
While the on-hand Servants tried to get the Chosen under control, Waia squinted at it. She recalled something very reminiscent of the fleshy insect in front of her burning down Honoka’a during Torch’s visit. That settled it in her mind, someone had put things in place just to mess with her here.
Suleman gazed up at the frantic monstrosity, the draft made by its thrumming wings lifting his cape off of the ground. “I was told that the Chosen have a, um, a knack for sniffing out those aligned against the Servants, yes?”
The Servant who had delivered the Chosen nodded slowly. “Remarkable, isn’t it? Torch has granted the finest of our number the power to sense their enemies’ very presence. How I wish I could ask Torch how th–”
“Yes, yes, you can give me the brochure later.” Suleman waved at the Chosen’s captors. “Make it start searching, quick.”
“Oh, it’s not going to stop at just finding this infiltrator, don’t worry.” The Chosen keeper held up a small remote control. “Trust me, the hardest part of all this will be putting the collar back on.”
Mark didn’t have a plan to get Waia out of danger, he wasn’t even close to getting one.
When the back of his mind returned with an answer to where he knew the old man in the cape from, he decided he didn’t need a plan.
He shouldered his way to the front of the line and waved for the people around the truck to stop. “Hey, hey, okay, no need to make a scene! I’m here!”
The feeling of hundreds of eyes on him immediately made Mark regret his intervention. Thankfully, the sudden attention included both the keeper with the remote, and Suleman.
Suleman squinted at Mark. “So y–” He froze, eyes wide. “H… Y– You…?”
Mark went down on his knees and folded his hands behind his head. “Can you put that thing away? The buzzing’s starting to make my ears ring.”
Suleman looked around at the assembled Servants, but didn’t see any hints of recognition. “You’re…”
“I literally can’t make this any easier for you, put the dragonfly away and take me to apocalypse jail or something.” Mark noticed Waia peering over a Servant’s shoulder. Though she remained subtle enough to avoid drawing too much attention to herself, she still looked between Mark and the Servants around the truck in a manner that quite effectively conveyed confusion.
Keeping his hand behind his back, Mark waved Waia down, then flared his fingers out three times. Just to be sure, he mouthed “Fifteen minutes” to her as inconspicuously as he could.
Waia narrowed her eyes, nodded, and moved back into the crowd with the hints of a smile on her face.
A Huntsman reached Mark and pulled him to his feet, pinning his arms behind his back while his rolling pin-shaped gun and knife were removed from his belt. Weapons in their free hand, the Huntsman pushed Mark towards Suleman. As he was brought forward, Mark noticed the Chosen getting even more agitated, straining desperately at its chains before Suleman grimaced and signaled for it to be corralled back into the trailer.
Mark half-heartedly tried to shrug off the Huntsman’s grip on his arms before looking Suleman dead in the eye and struggling to resist grinning like an idiot. “Good to see you recognize me too, I was worried that it’s been too long. I’m sure you’ve got a few questions for a guy like me, so how about we spend a little while on that before we get to the messy part?”
Suleman looked over Mark’s shoulder and once again scanned the curious crowd, but came up with nothing. He hesitantly looked back at Mark, then at the Huntsman restraining him. “...Are they questions that I would rather know?”
“Yeah, probably. So, you mind telling my chauffeur here–” Mark nodded back at the Huntsman. “–where to take me for that? Maybe enunciate a little, it can’t be easy to hear under that gas mask.” He turned to face the Huntsman. “Isn’t that right?”
The Huntsman shrugged and held their thumb and forefinger close together.
“At least I can talk to a few people here,” mumbled Mark.
Suleman sighed. “Right, yes, you’re right.” He made eye contact with the Huntsman’s goggles. “Take him to my… office? Is that what we call it? Do we have a fancy hunt-themed word for where Huntmasters live?”
The Huntsman pushed Mark past the convoy and down the road. Suleman gave the crowd one more scan before waving them away. “That’ll be all, everyone, you can go back to what you were doing now!”
As the convoy dispersed to let the crowd pass back into the main part of the city, Waia spotted a Servant wearing a watch and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, what time is it?”
The Servant glanced at his wrist. “Quarter past Eleven.”
“No, I mean the exact time.”
The Servant held out his arm for Waia to check herself. The watch face displayed 15:13:41.
“Great, thanks.” Waia jogged off back to the house that she and Mark had been staying in. Mark was probably doing something poorly thought-out, but she decided to humor him. His timer started now.