Eight stepped inside the spacious room, surveying the whole place at once. He had expected to be greeted by a line of henchmen or Abnormals standing guard, but the only people who greeted him were young boys pushing their way out of the room, trying to escape the chaos of the battle behind Eight. A single long fur rug stretched from one end of the room to the other. A bed with cushions and pillows stood to the left, and four electric lamps on the ceiling bathed the room in a soft yellow light. On the opposite side of the entrance stood an armchair, with an aquarium made into a wall behind it. Only blue water could be seen behind the glass; not a single fish was in sight.
Philippi’s sister stood at attention in the right corner of the room, quite like a moose with an air vent behind her. She gulped nervously at the sight of blood covering the Number, but then scowled and gave him the middle finger, quickly jumping back into an immobile pose at the sound of two spherical objects colliding. On a far wall, to the left of Eight, was a control panel, from which poorly concealed cables ran up, connecting it to a cooling system above, which kept a soothing atmosphere in this place.
And directly opposite the entrance, with his back to the aquarium, sat Tulio Monzon, toying with twin orbs in his left hand. The kingpin who ruled the wounded city was a troll, not a partially big one. There was nothing unusual about him—the regular length of his arms, a typical lack of scars, not a single emotion on his lips. He wore no jewelry and was dressed in a simple, unbuttoned white business suit with a blue jacket underneath. A few wet stains on the pants stained the spot between the troll’s legs. His head rested on his fist, and small eyes bored inquisitively into Eight.
“How many crimes have you committed against me, Doctor?” Tulio asked, raising a hand with his spheres. Tap. Tap. The spheres went round and round again and anew in his palm, banging against each other with each circle. Eight knew a bit of them; doctors in the wastes often prescribed their patients to fiddle with them during a recovery from a hand injury. It was also a common belief that they helped develop strength and agility, and while there was some merit to these superstitions, the round balls did help restore range of motion after a broken finger or two. Eight himself ever used them for meditation.
“You attacked my people, thinning the ranks of both Blessed Ones and Normies,” Tulio continued. “You stole from me and shattered the peace I had established in this city. You slaughtered my allies and brought damage to the Crabs’ reputation. A thousand deaths are not enough to repay this insult.” He shook his head. “I suppose three lives will have to do for today.”
“Sorry to spoil your mood, I guess,” Eight replied, checking the room. There was no sign of automatic defenses or a hidden guard.
“Spoil? For whom do you take me, fool? If you think you angered me even a little, you are sorely mistaken.” Tulio spun his orbs again.
“So you’re not upset about Roz’s impending demise? She kind of called you a honey; I thought there was something going on between you two.” Eight pointed back without breaking eye contact. “And besides that, I sort of ended your organization.”
“Hm. Women. They all want only one thing from a man. Roz is a valuable asset, but her delusions are just that: delusions of horny flesh. And as for troubles for my organization…” Tulio put his legs forward, leaning back more comfortably in his armchair. “It works in my favor. Power,” Monzon started explaining at Eight’s arched brow. “Status, money, authority—call it however you want. People crave it; they build themselves gilded towers to sit above all else and become too obsessed with the thought of keeping said power, be it physical, political, or any other kind. As time goes by, they find themselves unable to escape the confines of their tower and unable to act as freely as before. Ceremonies, business meetings, and the like.
“The people will create order for their subjects, but the said order turns into a prison for the rulers. How many times a dictator couldn’t resign out of fear of being killed? It is the same with the rulers of the underworld. I crave no such fate. When my tower falls, I simply build it up again, learning something new each time. People, humans, status, authority… None of it holds any value or sway for me. The thrill of rebuilding my organization repays all inconveniences tenfold. I don’t care how many times my tower will topple; being untouchable at the price of becoming a prisoner is unacceptable to me. But facing off against assassins, finding connections, building up foundations—this is fun to me.
“An adrenaline-seeking troll,” Eight chuckled. “Now I have truly seen everything.”
Not even close, servant. Maximilian whispered in his head, taking a fleeting interest in the events.
“This right here was an experiment with building up a less stable foundation. I find it properly gross, but it has provided me with an unexpected amusement in the form of meeting with you.” Tulio’s unblinking eyes bored into Eight. “Maybe next time I will build something that will last. Or maybe not. The world is vast, and I see no reason to confine myself to a small corner of it. At the end of the day, you are still a prisoner of my authority, Doctor Ulli. Serve or resist, you play a role in the theater built for my amusement.”
“Well, that depends.” Eight moved his fingers, checking that the wounds he had received hadn’t made him stiff. The small talk helped the innate regeneration of his body was hard at work, closing the gaping wounds. “If you are dead, all that amusement goes down the drain.”
“Think whatever,” Monzon said in a dispassionate tone. “The play is over, and it is time to draw the final curtain and bow out before the place gets too heated. You have spurned my offer, doctor. There won’t be another…”
“And your very existence offends me.” Eight let his mask slip, and the metal flowed up his body, covering the muscles of his neck and arm, creating a subdermal armor beneath his skin and enlarging the muscles. His fingers changed. The damaged hand healed, and a glint of flesh still dangled at the end of his fingertips, eager to tear through flesh and bone alike. “Can you stop it, genetic freak?”
Tulio rose, reaching to grab the collar of his suit. Not a hint of emotion flashed upon the dispassionate face, but Eight saw a change in the man’s eyes, and a hastened breath left the kingpin’s lips. “Ah. It seems I cannot leave this city yet. An untapped pleasure awaits, ripe for plunder. Tell me, which Number are you, so that I may engrave the memory of this encounter into my memory?” He drew himself to full height, missing a round of his spheres, and behind him the aquarium’s glass cracked, forming an image of outstretched wings.
Eight sprang, aiming his claws at the troll’s face, and the glass shattered, unleashing a torrent of water inside the room. It passed round and above the criminal, slamming into Eight, but he pierced through the push, focusing his eyes on the figure ahead. Eight slashed through the waterfall, spearing the water, the suit, and the back of the armchair. He missed. Tulio removed the suit, formed a copy of his figure out of the water, and combined the two to fool Eight.
The water engulfed the number, raising him up. Water whips grabbed him by the legs, slamming him back at the entrance, cracking the floor, and soaking the fur rug. The impact of this fall had reverberated across Eight’s bones. The floor of this room was made partially of marble and partially of some sort of reinforced alloy; it had refused to buckle even a little under his weight, and Number took the full damage of this throw.
A stream of water came down, solidifying into a guillotine made of ice. Eight caught the icy blade between his palms, shattering it, and sliced the water whips holding his legs captive. The Number rolled aside just in time to evade a series of spikes rising out of the rug and damaging the ceiling, but a single droplet of water that had fallen on his forehead made him bite his lower lip in pain. The water drop, no bigger than a finger, moved like a snake under Tulio’s will. It reached his left eye, and the water popped it, trying to go further. Eight barely saved himself by raking his own eye socket and clawing the water out, while the host of his body filled him with howls of pain and the Creator laughed darkly. To maintain his concentration, Eight turned off the host’s ability to experience any feelings and locked the man in an utter void, shutting him up.
Tulio didn’t move. He stood near the ruined armchair, playing with his spheres. And whips made of water faced Eight’s onslaught, taking on the slashes of the steel claws, slowing his arms and legs, before grabbing him and casting him back each time he attacked. Trice, he tried. And trice the water beat him back, leaving gashes and welts all over his body, forming the sharpest blades by transforming the edge of the coming waves into ice. At the fourth time, Tulio’s hand flicked, and Eight dove aside, trusting his instincts.
A ball. It passed unhindered through the cover of water and exploded, throwing Eight against the wall. Tulio followed in the wake of destruction, raising his free hand, and a water blade formed around it, hardening into solid ice. Eight rolled out of the blow that bisected the bed and the wall behind him and faced the troll head-on. Water hooks grasped his arms and legs, but he spat out the poison he had swallowed in the hospital, collapsing the pills between the teeth. Tulio inhaled the fumes and recoiled in pain, and Eight broke free from the hooks. Tulio’s blade shattered, and black veins appeared at the man’s neck, but he didn’t lose his focus and stopped the Number from reaching him.
A coup de grâce has come. Tulio had either panicked or had had enough of the fight; it was difficult to say with trolls. A water flow rose from the rug, slamming into Eight’s mouth, breaking some of his teeth, and trying to fill his insides to the point of burst. This was the moment that Eight waited. Since the start of the fight, he had let Monzon into this exact position, and now he grabbed the pistol he took from the Normie and fired.
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The shockwave and the sonic boom from the shot parted the waves, and the projectile itself passed through a water wall raised in front of Tulio. The left side of his head cracked, and an eye disappeared. The troll grabbed himself by the face, still struggling against the poison.
“Don’t… d-don’t know much about t-trolls, d-do you?” He asked, taking the hand away from his face. A light passed through the ravaged hole in his face, but the brain, the one weak spot of all trolls, had stayed within the cranium, protected by a smaller bone growth within the skull. “N-no m-more g-game-sssss. D-dieeee.”
Eight grinned, and for the first time in the battle, Tulio’s mouth twitched at the warning cry of Philippi’s sister. The man threw his last sphere, recognizing all too late what the Number had done. Eight had never intended to take the man down with a single shot; the chances of taking down a troll in such a situation were slim to none. In fact, he missed the original shot, aiming for the center of the man’s head. But it didn’t matter.
Because the shot hit the control panel, the energy chords came out, licking the floor soaked in water. Tulio twitched, assailed both by the poison and the electricity; his organs and veins vibrated, messing with the flow of his blood, and the electricity prevented his innate regeneration from reaching its peak. Eight caught the grenade, transforming both of his arms to their utmost and collapsing the explosive into his hand.
Monzon’s concentration failed at last, and Eight rammed into him, piercing with his oversized steel fingers underneath his ribs, and slammed the man into the control panel. Tulio tried to resist; whips of water slashed Eight across the back, and hidden blades showed form underneath his wrists, but it was too late. Eight moved his hands up, rupturing the lungs and drawing a faint sound out of Tulio.
“Squeal for me, mutant,” the Number muttered, opening the kingpin from the waist to the shoulders. Taking no chances, he turned the end into a brawl. The claws slashed at Tulio’s raised hands, slicing through bone. A single cruel hook opened the troll’s head. An uppercut to the groin reached the jaw. A kick left a hole in the kingpin’s chest. And a joint slap of both hands crushed the head, killing the man. The body fell, and Eight looked aside. “Now, whom did you call a…”
The little shit was gone! He had hoped that she’d fry amidst the electricity, but the wretch leapt into the ventilator shaft after her warning cry. Eight trampled Tulio’s remains onto the floor and returned his body to the natural size. He jumped after the girl, intending to finish her before she could reveal the Numbers’ presence to anyone. No one would probably believe a former Crab, but why take the risk?
It wasn’t hard to locate the girl; in her frantic escape, she was making a lot of noise. Eight followed like a vengeful demon, breaking the narrow shaft with his body and loudly clanking his teeth, hoping to scare the girl enough to make her stop. It didn’t work, and she slipped outside just before he could bite her little leg.
His hands crashed into the wall, and the Number came upon the steel outside, covered in dust. His target ran out to the small ruins ahead, and Eight smiled. No one lived in this district.
“Don’t run!” He shouted, catching up to her at a leisurely pace. “You’ll die tired!”
The chase led them to an abandoned square with a miraculously preserved swing in the middle of a ruined children’s playground. Shelling had destroyed the nearby buildings, and now they stared at the impending murder scene with empty black windows. The girl, breathing hard, reached the swing, grabbing a swinging man by his coat. He looked like an average Normie dressed in a white lab coat. The man stopped mindlessly playing and patted the soon-to-be-dead Crab on her head, utterly ignoring Eight.
Good. Eight’s hand almost touched the man’s neck, but he blocked the hit, kicking the surprised Number back. Eight’s confusion lasted a split second, and he exploded into violence, trying to slash the man apart or break him with his kicks. The man in the white lab coat faced this assault, evading and deflecting the attacks, a child before a giant, but only the giant couldn’t land even a single glancing hit at the bastard, instead exploding the sand and the swing behind the man with his kicks.
This thing shouldn’t be this fast or hit this hard! Eight thought in confusion. Size follows form, and form follows function. There was a reason why so many Abnormals had large heights and well-built musculature, making it hard to tell a woman from a man at a glance. Short of having some sort of uber-compressed muscles, this Normie should’ve died already.
“I am not someone you can hunt, creature.” The man said, planting the palm of his hand in Eight’s chest, sending an impact through the body armor and driving the Number back. He stood up, swiping back the unkempt black hair and looking at the Number with twin green eyes, swimming in the pools of dark sclera. They shimmered ever so lightly, suggesting some sort of mechanical augmentation. “But your intervention serves our plans yet. Tell you what, thing. In two weeks, we will begin a nationwide hunt for your kind. The Oathtakers are now in our sphere of interest, so piss off kindly or be exterminated, pest.”
“And who might you be?” Eight inquired, dusting off his clothes. The Creator bored into his brain, taking a direct seat in his body.
“Wouldn’t you want to know, artificial? I am feeling magnanimous.” The man spread his arms wide, as if he wanted to grasp the ruins. The girl hid behind his lab coat, sucking a thumb. “We are humanity.”
“Then we have nothing to worry about,” Eight said.
“Do you now, genetic bug?” The man cocked his head. “You and your misbegotten master have not a hint of how strong humans are. Madmen, monsters, mutants, false gods, inhuman oppressors, virtuals… We will end them all. The glorious pre-extinction days will return, and we will see humanity re-established as the righteous rulers of the cosmos. We are the ones who will shatter the shackles of oppression and rescue our fellow humans…”
“Like you saved the guards at the brothel? Killing rescue, hypocrite,” Maximillian said these words, ignoring the Eight’s pleas to remain calm.
“Every cause needs the blood of martyrs, boy. Speaking of hypocrisy, I find it hilarious how you see yourself so high compared to other humans, and yet you and the others are so obsessed with the crap we discarded.” Eight and Maximillian remained silent, letting the fool speak. The implications of his confession were... fascinating. “Nothing to say? A cat got your tongue? Hear the wisdom, then. Strength that is not your own is useless. Never create something that you can’t stop.” The man shook his shoulders. “I have no idea of your master’s long-term plans, slave, and I don’t really care to know either. It is something inane, no doubt. But your short-term idea is laid bare for a superior intellect such as mine. Go on. Play your part. And do not linger afterwards.”
“Figured us all out, did you now?” Eight bared his lips, showing the glint of metal covering his teeth. Everything within him screamed about the need to kill this thing. Too dangerous to let live. An unpredictable element in their plans.
“It wasn’t that hard. Find it hard to believe, evolutionary cul-de-sac? Here, let me prove it to you.” The green-eyed man smirked. “Try using those stolen brains for a change. What are the odds of a distraught woman storming into your hospital this very day? Why wasn’t she caught before?” Eight clenched his fists, and the picture started forming in his mind. “Ah, the realization is dawning at last. Good, flesh cog, very good. I had come here to deliver our ultimatum to the petulant child, whom you call a master. But upon seeing the genetic filth oppressing my fellow humans, I thought of a funny game. Why not sicken one enemy of humanity at another? Much more fun than getting my own hands dirty. I applaud you for dancing to my every tune so obediently, botched product.”
“Does…” the girl spoke, and the man turned to face her, opening his neck for a blow. But Eight held his hand. “Does that mean I am…”
“Free and done your job to the letter.” The man rummaged in his pocket and gave the girl a set of pills. “Here is the promised reward: a single one will bring your aunt back to the prime of her health. Do with the rest as you see fit.” He slapped the girl on the back of the head, sending her scurrying away.
A man after my own heart. Eight thought sourly. Most of the time, humans always reneged on their deals, but something about the man’s blabbering personality convinced him that this creature was sincere.
“And I will literally come after your heart if you ignore my warning,” the Green Eyes said.
“Your threat has been heard, obsolete. Run along now.” Maximilian took control of Eight’s body and gestured with his claws.
“Threat? Silly thing, it was a promise. Disobey it at your peril.”
Suddenly there was a pop. A black spot, a crack in reality, appeared behind the Green Eyes. It expanded, shattering the space and forming a portal, leading into a white void. Eight narrowed his good eye and saw rows of examination slabs on the other side and people working on immobilized Abnormals. Without any sedatives, leaving their patients thrashing in pain. The Green Eyes was about to step through it but stopped after Eight trailed the running girl with a glance.
“Try it,” he asked, as if reading Eight’s mind. The back of his coat shifted, and a metal appendage showed up, slithering across the ground in anticipation. “Please. And I will retract my kindness. I was against this offer, anyway.”
“Run. Along. Now,” Maximilian growled.
Eight stood in place for some time after the portal had closed. Maximilian’s thoughts threatened to overwhelm him; in his haste, the Creator hadn’t severed the bond between the two.
They have the means to deal with my servants here, so why not do so? Ah, I see. They plan to use us. These vermin are worming their way into the trust of the Oathtakers and acting all nice. At the same time, they are using us as a controlled element of chaos. If we let loose Chosen Prince and they stop him, the alliance between the two is all but sealed. This flashy teleportation of his was meant to distract and obfuscate from the fact that our new friends have limited resources and are in need of allies to carry out their plans. To use us to kill mutants. Using mutants to kill mutants. Tsk, tsk, I am almost disappointed.
When Maximilian wanted, his bright mind could solve any equation, pick up any lock, and resolve any problem to his benefit. That was the problem with the Creator. All too often, he refused to think.
If I’d bothered to think about any problem, I never would have taken up arms, Eight. The Creator read his thoughts, but his words reminded Eight of the murmur of a well-fed cat. Sometimes you have to let go of thinking and cut the knot of contradictions and prejudices to save the world before its foolish inhabitants scatter it en masse.
Whether the new players’ plan was predictable or not, it mattered not, as it threw some of their calculations into disarray. The Number felt a new eyeball forming in the place of his ruined eye and left, planning to collect Ten and Twenty Eight before this new element could step in. Maybe they should hurry the plan? Surely, even without Hustler…
Be calm, Eight. The Creator chastised him. The operation will proceed exactly as planned. We have lost nothing today, but rather gained the most precious thing of all. Knowledge. We will enslave our target. And the day will come when this man’s precious humanity will be gone, and he will go with it. When all is said and done, there will be only one winner in this little game of ours. Me.