Sitting in the back of an old beat-up van and wielding weapons called archaic well before he was born, Dorian wondered how his life had ever gotten this bad. How all their lives had gotten so bad. Closing his eyes, Dorian focused on what was coming and tried to centre himself. Images of the streets the van took pervaded his thoughts, closed shops with broken windows, dirt-filled streets and dead eye men and women doing their best to survive another day.

He knew they'd left the city when the bumpy car ride turned to smooth driving on routinely maintained roads devoid of potholes. Once, such knowledge would have left him angry and despondent for days— now he simply fed the feeling into the burning ball of resentment he carried.

“Yo, Dorian.”

Dorian opened his eyes at the mention of his name to see Jax pointing to his chest. He looked down and found his necklace hanging down his front. Nodding absently, he shoved the necklace down his shirt and next to his heart.

“Three minutes, final checks,” a voice called from the front.

With well-practised ease, Dorian and the other occupants in the van checked over their weapons and turned their safeties off. They were going in loud. Sighting down the iron sites on his gun, Dorian checked out the other occupants in the van.

There was Jax a balding muscular dark-skinned man, known for his ability to think calmly under pressure and their point for this operation.

Sitting beside Dorian was Leo, a quiet man with dirty blonde hair and the deadened eyes common to the citizens of the Lodge. Leo never spoke till he absolutely had to and even then it wasn't a sure thing. Dorian had found that out the hard way.

Rounding out their quadfecta was Dan, their resident hothead and the reason for the entire endeavour. Dorian remembered seeing Dan after the events at the blood-drenched fields. A skinny, blood-covered and shell-shocked boy barely older and taller than the spear he had had a death grip on. Seeing him now was like night and day, with his rippling muscles and buzz-cut hair and multiple piercings. Everyone coped in their own way.

The van slowed to a stop and Dorian knew they had arrived. A slot in the driver's seat slid open and a dark-haired beauty poked her head through. The daughter of the head of a conglomerate and so far above everyone in the van it was laughable and yet, here she was. Sandra was an avid supporter of the hunters and Dan's current fling. And they were going to rob a bank she owned in all but name.

“In and out guys, ten minutes.”

As Dorian pulled down his balaclava and grabbed his satchel, he wondered how Dan had got such a woman and how he'd been pulled into such a situation. Knowing it was too late and knowing he had had no other choice.

With no other words exchanged and discipline gained through the crucible of war, the four occupants of the van streamed out and dashed towards the bank.

As they ran they seamlessly fell into position with Jax taking point. The lone security guarding the entrance looked up and leapt out of his chair and fumbled for the gun holstered at his side. He got a bullet in his knee for his trouble, courtesy of Jax. The guard stumbled and fell from the force of the bullet hitting his knee and let out a loud yell. The bullet had never made it through his pant leg.

'Of course, the guard has bulletproof clothing.' Dorian thought grimly.

A well-placed strike from a gun stock to the guard's forehead knocked him out cold and put an end to his caterwauling. Moving forward, Dorian reached for the guard's sidearm only to hear an annoying beep. Biometrically locked. Of course.

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Dorian dumped the gun and headed for the door held open by Leo. Once inside, a solitary gunshot from Dan's gun silenced the people in the bank. With well-practised movements, Jax and Dan headed for the vault whilst Leo and Dorian pulled out plastic cuffs and started restraining the civilians.

“Seven minutes.” a feminine voice whispered in Dorian's ear from his earpiece.

Wordlessly Dorian and Leo grabbed a short portly man, the bank administrator who was trying to make himself invisible and pulled him towards the vault. Dorian and Leo pulled up with their prisoner to find the outer doors of the vault open. Dan grabbed the manager and shoved him towards the biometric lock on the wall. With sinister calmness four gun barrels came up and gestured to the manager's face and back to the lock.

Minutes later the four wheeled out of the bank with trolleys carrying four big black cases. The van pulled up and they began loading the cases into it. Dorian bent to pick up the final case only to hear something whizz by over his head. He dived into a roll and fired blindly at where the bullet came from. A familiar yell let Dorian know he'd hit the guard.

Moving quickly, Dorian dived for the case and jumped into the van and breathed a sigh of relief when it shot off and the door shut behind him. Minutes later they pulled into an alleyway, a very nice alleyway and moved the cases from the beat-up van into a new sleeker one.

The sound of smooching came from outside the van and Dorian did his best to ignore the sound. Wordlessly, the driver's seat of the new van opened and Dan jumped in and drove off, leaving Sandra to set fire to the old one.

As they drove out of the city and towards The Lodge, the sounds of police sirens reached Dorian and a solitary pillar of smoke marked the location of their old van.

They'd done it.

Hours later the car transitioned from smooth riding to the familiar rough, rise and fall of the streets of The Lodge. They pulled into a beat-up old garage that was far too ugly for what they were driving. Dorian pulled the door open and stumbled out, his limbs having gotten stiff from sitting too long.

Dorian was enveloped in a crushing hug by Dan, “We did it, Dorian, we fucking did it.” he yelled. Dorian cracked a smile and extricated himself. “We sure fucking did. ”

Leo got the same treatment and tolerated it for half a second. Dorian knew he was counting. Jax made to climb out of the van and stumbled to the ground, they all moved to help him when they saw the blood.

“Fuck!!” Dan swore loudly.

Dorian pushed his way to Jax's side and tore open the older man's shirt and breathed out a sigh of relief. The round had hit his side and cauterized the wound on its way out. His movement had just torn the wound open.

Dorian explained and they all breathed out in relief. With disaster averted the light of excitement reentered Dan's eyes.

“He still needs to go to a doctor right?” receiving a nod from Dorian his smile widened. “Well, I guess we better pay the man. ”

Feeling excited himself, Dorian struggled to his feet after first making sure Jax was okay. He approached the cases strewn about the van and pulled one out to begin working on it. With deft manipulation of his lockpick, the case gave up with a satisfying click. Almost salivating at the mouth, Dorian opened the case and froze.

Leo who had been staring over his shoulder saw what Dorian had seen and stumbled backwards. Focused on his case Dan didn't look up but Jax who was holding his side and leaning against the van looked up and noticed the looks on both Dorian and Leo's faces.

With supreme effort, Jax struggled to his feet and looked at Dorian's open case.

“Huh.” was all he said.

Another click signified the opening of Dan's case. The flash of light when Dan opened his case gave Dorian hope, but the hope crumbled when Dan grabbed the case and flung it away.

With wooden steps, Dorian approached one of the items that had fallen out of the case. He picked it up and his stomach dropped, Dorian had seen many monster cores in his life. He'd harvested a lot in his time as a hunter and he knew the brilliance they contained. What he held now was a monster core yes, but a depleted one.

They'd been played.

Another click and another thrown case made Dorian know it was the same with all the cases. Knowing it wouldn't change anything but needing to know, Dorian walked back towards the case he'd opened and pulled out his necklace, and hanging at the end of the chain was a crystal stone The System had one identified as essence stone. Essence stones also had another name, duds.

Unlike the monster cores harvested from monster corpses that came packed with energy called Echo, essence stones were essentially useless, they had no detectable energy and no apparent use and so the hunters of old had used them as a form of identification since they seemed to drop at least once for all hunters.

Dorian didn't need to look at the rest of the cases to know their entire haul had added up to depleted monster cores and useless essence stones.

They'd been royally played.