Starshine. Tabitha. Starshine. Tabitha.
The young girl was overburdened with three large plates of food. One more than she could handle safely.
So, it was perhaps expected that her straining hands and arms would give.
A plate teetered and in an effort to save it the other two joined it.
Oh no!
A mess and a waste was moments from hitting the floor.
The master would be unhappy with her.
Until…
The plates returned to her followed by the food to the plates.
They sat in her hands and arms.
Stable and steady.
Light as a feather.
She carried them to the table and placed them at the direction of the woman in charge of setting.
Tabitha paid no attention to what had just happened.
Neither did any of the other collared women ferrying items from the kitchen into the formal dining room for their master’s dinner party.
Their master appeared as soon as they had finished.
He smiled down at her.
It gave her the happiest feeling she had ever felt in the world.
“Thank you, all. Please go to your wing and continue as instructed,” he said.
She beamed up at him and skipped ahead of the others.
She had a desk just for her in the room she shared.
A stack of coloring books. Paper and every color of crayon awaited.
Doing anything the master told her to do always filled her with joy.
This, however, something about it made her even happier.
She colored and drew. Taking frequent breaks to drink water and eat the cookies one of the others had placed next to her.
In the main part of the mansion an old man greeted every guest that came through the front door with a scowl of pure disgust.
Bitterman. Tlaloc. Bitterman. Tlaloc.
His original name was long forgotten.
He saw himself as the god of rain. Of life.
He had vowed freedom for all chained, collared as he had once been.
The time drew near for this farce to end. For the masks to drop. For the slavers to die.
“Dining room,” he grunted vaguely pointing toward the back of the grand entry way.
The tall woman with a metallic sheen to her carved physique carefully scanned the space. Seeing nothing to concern her she pointed at the central opening beneath the twinned stair case. “Through there?”
Tlaloc as Bitterman grunted.
“Look, old man,” she loomed, “there’s three different hallways. I’m not about to wander around your slave master’s mansion. So, if this is some kind of tr—”
“Yo, hi!” a smiling young man appeared at the top of the staircase.
She blinked. Eyes narrowed.
He hastily held his hands open as he slowly, casually moved down the left staircase.
No visible weapons, but that didn’t mean much.
“You’re ‘Steel Hammer’?” the young man’s easy smile never wavered as he stopped just outside her reach. He had to crane his neck back to look up into her eyes. “I go by ‘Ghost Sorcerer’. I’m Gold Division, like you, well… not like you, since I’m only in the timed event.”
“Hammer’s fine,” she grunted taking his outstretched hand very gently, “and I’m not calling you that. Too long.”
“Some people call me… ‘Ghosty’,” he sighed. “Sorry about Bitterman, he’s not enjoying this whole thing,” he waved a hand vaguely.
The old man bristled.
She felt something in the air around him on her altered flesh. Like when there was a thunderstorm about to hit.
“Er… I’ll take you to the meeting if you don’t mind,” Ghost Sorcerer said.
She followed him into a long corridor with her eyes and ears open. “If this is a trap, I’m not going to pull my punches just cause he’s an old man and you’re a kid.”
“No trap and I’m not a kid. I’d say we’re here for mostly the same reasons. You’ll find out more in a little bit. I think we’re only waiting on a few more people before we can start.”
The kid led her into a dining room just as grand as the entry way.
She had never known such luxury.
It was more like a full restaurant than a private home’s dining room.
Hell, all her life the kitchen and the dining room were basically the same things. It wasn’t until after the spires had appeared and she had gained her powers that she learned otherwise.
Even then she never sought luxury.
Something about it made her mad.
A flash of green and purple out of the corner of her eye.
Another thing that made her mad.
“You,” she said flatly.
“You,” the Emerald Bomber pointed mockingly.
She clenched her fists and took a step forward only for a grotesque monster eye the size of a soccer ball to descend in front of her.
She recoiled, fists up as the orb blinked at her with its iris made of three rotating circles each with a pupil of the blackest void.
“Please, we are all in common cause,” the magus said.
The older woman sat at the enormous table.
The magus’ head was uncovered revealing curly hair more gray than black.
The soft light smoothed out the wrinkles on her sun-browned skin.
She decided that the magus looked a lot more at ease than in their previous meeting.
“Pick a seat, any seat,” Ghost Sorcerer gestured.
There were enough seats for a few dozen people around the vaguely oval-shaped table.
She went around until she found a spot where she could keep an eye on everyone else and the three open doorways. She reached for the chair, then hesitated.
The chair looked expensive, solid wood.
Strong enough?
It wasn’t something she could take for granted.
“It’s strong enough. The shit bag that paid for it wanted solid ebony for the whole set,” a man said.
She shrugged. Pulled the chair out and carefully sat ready for it to break underneath her weight.
It creaked and groaned as if complaining, but held.
Still, she sat lightly.
She studied the man that had spoken.
Black hair, brown skin. Short, but with broad shoulders and muscles visible through his suit jacket. He looked young, but the eyes said otherwise. Might not have meant much. People grew up quicker in the post-spires world. She decided he was probably in his thirties.
She studied the rest of the people around the table.
The Emerald Bomber surprised her, being a fellow sister and looking older than expected without her devil-shaped helmet and mask. Tall for a woman, but still at least a foot shorter and a few hundred pounds lighter, judging by her slim figure in that form-fitting green armor that shined like metal, but moved with a flexibility closer to cloth.
She already knew the magus and creepy ten creepy monster eyes floating close to the ceiling like birthday balloons.
Perhaps, she shouldn’t have been surprised to see other Gold Division fighters among their number.
The three Furies traded daggers with their eyes across the way from the three Heartfuries.
How were they not at each other’s throats after that vicious fight in the finals?
She recognized the burly brawler seated next to Ghost Sorcerer, though she couldn’t recall his name. The bald, scar-faced man with a crooked nose and notches out of his cauliflower ears was hunched over a plate from which he was shoveling food in his mouth like a man coming off a soup diet. Probably, still recovering from the injuries he had picked up against that wannabe vampire assassin lord.
A few seats from the two men, Blackstar sat with her team trying to keep an eye on everyone else at the table.
The angry woman, Rino, sat sandwiched between a young man that looked familiar, Silver-something and a smiling blond that she didn’t recognize.
The blond waved.
She moved on to the next person.
A dark-haired young man that she didn’t recognize looking very nervous, though if it was because of the powerful and dangerous assortment of people gathered around him or because of the waif-ish blond seated next to him, wasn’t clear.
The small blond’s gaze sent a shiver up her spine.
Thankfully, she had an excuse to look away as a pair of people were led into the kitchen by the old Bitterman.
She recognized Gearlok, another stupid name courtesy of the slavers, walk in with a young man even bigger than him.
The man with machine parts moved with audible whirring and clicking from the what had to be the motors and gears moving his artificial leg and arm.
Huh?
She had seen his fights seeing as how he had been in her bracket and was a potential opponent.
His mechanical leg was hidden beneath his pants, but his short sleeves revealed the mechanical arm.
It looked different.
Sleeker. Newer.
“Great, that’s everyone!” the short man seated close to her stood. “So, I invited you all here and I’d like to start with a question.”
She held her breath.
This was the one that the magus trusted enough to risk going against the slavers in the heart of their main city?
“Would you rather eat first or hear what I have to say?” he grinned.
“Who the fuck are you anyways? Not the lord that owns this place? I did some checking around and Lord Don Wynn is a fat, old, white fuck that likes to diddle young women, girls and sometimes boys,” Emerald Bomber said.
“My name is ‘Cal Cruces’, as a sign of trust and the seriousness of this, that’s my real name.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Bold of you, if that’s true,” Blackstar said.
Cal Cruces shrugged.
“I don’t care about the food,” she said. “You saying you can get me out of this place, so talk about that.”
“Does everyone else agree with Ms. Hammer?”
“Whatever, old man,” Tisiphone said, “not like we can’t eat and talk, look at Shrewed over there, he’s halfway through his second plate.”
“Respect the strength, Tisi,” Alecto chided.
“Sorry, grandma,” Tisiphone inclined her head to Cal.
“Okay, feel free to eat and I’ll start,” he said. “I just want to be clear, I’m not going to just take you out of here. Selfishly, I need your assistance for a selfless purpose. We are here to free everyone in a collar, whatever it takes. To that end, I’m asking you to fight, specifically during that last banquet at the king’s castle. The more he and his people are occupied the easier it’ll be to achieve our goals. That’s the general shape of our plans. I’ll answer any questions you have for further details, but you’ll understand that some things I’ll have to keep from you.”
“What’s stopping one of us from going to the king with this?” Emerald Bomber said. She looked at the rest of the table. “C’mon, I know I’m not the only one thinking it.”
Hammer scowled down at the woman. “Because you wouldn’t want to be a traitor to your own kind by helping a slaver,” she growled.
“Fuck that bullshit! I’ve got people back home that need me. I can’t be stuck here.”
“Having trouble leaving? Can’t you just fly away on your wing?” Rino grunted.
“My N.A.R. liaison suggested that it’d be in my best interests to stay and be celebrated for my performance. More gifts at the awards night ceremony and a place of honor at the king’s banquet. She also suggested that when I return to my home it’ll be with an escort of N.A.R. soldiers to help for protection and the transition, if we want, of course,” Emerald Bomber sneered, “she told me all this while giving me a tour of the airbase. They wanted to see if I could share my expertise to improve their attack helicopters.”
Hammer didn’t like feeling sympathy for the cheap bitch that had beaten her by cowardly decision. Still, Emerald Bomber’s experience was similar to hers. “The slavers are going to do us and our people just like the poor bastards in the collars even if we play along.”
“I agree on that,” Gearlok said. “You lighter folk might not have to worry about it as much as us, but I’m betting that they might play nice at the beginning, but we’ll eventually be wearing collars,” he nodded to her.
“They can try,” she said flatly.
“They will, which is why I’m thinking our best shot is to take it when they ain’t looking. It’s the punches you don’t see coming that knock you out,” he said.
“We don’t agree with the collars or anything they’re doing here, but we aren’t looking to get into a suicide quest,” Megaera said.
“Like you all, we also have a responsibility to protect our homes,” Alecto said.
“You guys are way different than you were in the arena,” Punchy said. “Less… angry.”
Tisiphone shot her the finger.
“Ah… there it is, good,” Punchy nodded. “What?” she looked askance at Cal Cruces, “I just thought it’d suck if it was all for show, you know? Fine… I’ll shut up now…”
“We’re not agreeing to help you without more details, but we don’t like what this place is about either, so, if we end up being out we won’t say anything to anybody,” Blackstar said.
“Fuck slavery and slavers,” Rino said.
“She means we’re already all in,” the smiling blond said.
“Same,” Ghost Sorcerer said.
Shrewed raised a hand as did the dark-haired young man and the disturbing waif next to him.
“Cal, if you could perhaps tell us more,” the magus said.
“Well, first of all, it’s only as much of a suicide mission as you make it. I’m asking you to back up the forces we already have in play. You’ll all be invited to the king’s castle for the banquet. You’ll all be seated in the main dining chamber where the king will be. If you’re in then you’ll have to fight the king’s forces and the competitors that did decide to join the slavers. But only long enough for me to destroy the whole collar thing. At that point, you can stick around and continue to help get things under control, leave on your own or be included in our exit plan, if necessary.”
It sounded so easy the way Cal Cruces described it.
She wanted to agree right then and there.
“If it gets too much for you or you feel like your about to die then I have no problem with you withdrawing and using the chaos to escape the city. In that event I’ll even provide directions to those other forces that can help you and you them as it pertains to slaver forces or monsters beyond the city boundary,” he said. “I want to make it clear. You don’t have to join up. There will be a ton of chaos that skilled and motivated people, such as yourselves, can use to get out. I just believe that it’s worth the risk to free these people. No one should live in chains. And since we have the power to do something about it…”
“The Quest!” Punchy snapped her fingers.
“Oh right, there is a Quest,” he sighed.
“It should not be required. To do the right thing is enough reward,” the magus said.
“Not that I don’t disagree, but a Quest would tip things your way,” Blackstar said.
“You willing to share those details?” Emerald Bomber said.
“It’s a multi-part Quest. I expect the spires will parse out specific parts to you individually by whatever metric it decides these things. The only stated reward is ten million universal points total for the overarching Quest. It promises more based on performance and for those specific parts.”
“A cut out of ten million might not be that much if you’ve got a lot of people in those forces,” Blackstar said.
“Can I tell them?” Punchy said.
Cal Cruces nodded.
“One part is killing the slaver king. One million to share and bonuses to stats, Skills and spells. The more you contribute the more you get,” Punchy said.
“Yes, but you will also have taken part in stamping out the evil of slavery,” the magus said. “For the older ones, you remember the old world, when such things existed, but we, as individuals were powerless to do anything about it. Women and girls trafficked. Children forced to harvest chocolate. Mine sand, lithium and other things. Work in sweatshops and factories. This happened all over the world. I see you shaking your head, American,” she regarded Emerald Bomber, “but your country was no exception.”
“Look, I’m that cause they enslaved my ancestors, but that was, like, hundreds of years ago,” Emerald Bomber said.
“We still had sweatshops, massage parlors, farms, selling women, girls, boys,” Shrewed said. “Saw some of it for myself. Didn’t do nothing about it cause I was a miserable bastard and figured it wasn’t my problem. It was just how things worked. Strong, weak… all that was garbage. Now, I’m staring that evil in the face and I can finally do something about it. Fuck it, honestly, don’t care if it turns out to be a suicide Quest. All that hurt I dished out before,” he shook his head, “been trying to make up for it all. Don’t think I can, but I ain’t ever gonna stop until I’m dead.”
“Not a suicide mission,” Cal Cruces regarded Shrewed. “To die prematurely will rob the world and its people of what you could do for them. Death is a possibility, but we won’t seek it our, right, Shrewed?”
“Yeah… I didn’t mean it like that,” the scarred brawler said.
Hammer digested the words as she absently chewed on a chunk of steak.
She knew the history of her ancestors in a broad sense even if she knew nothing of her own family line beyond her grandmother. The part of her that had thought about it had always seen it as a tragedy. The rest of her had been too busy and too tired working so many jobs while trying to get good enough grades in junior college to get into the local university.
Then the spires appeared and ruined all her hustling.
Turned her into a superhuman though, so that was a plus.
Eventually killed all her family.
So, by her count, she was in the negative.
Her powers meant nothing in that calculus.
She had to make them count.
Helping the small community she had come to call home was a start.
“I’m in. All the way,” she said surprising herself at the conviction in her metallic heart.
There was justice in her being a part in putting an end to slavery.
“Same,” Gearlok said. “As long as my boy isn’t part of the fighting.”
“Dad—”
“We talked about this, Colin,” he turned to Cal. “Can you guarantee me my boy will be safe?”
“If he stays here he’ll be evacuated with the enslaved when the time comes.”
“That’s not a guarantee,” Colin scowled, “c’mon, Dad, you need me with you. What if something goes wrong with the new stuff?”
“I know you can fight, but not this time. It’ll be too dangerous for me to have to worry about you, while trying to put the king down,” Gearlok said.
Colin fell silent but the look in his face said the argument wasn’t done.
“Ain’t no guarantees the moment we set foot in this place,” Shrewed said.
“Okay, I have a question,” Tisiphone raised her hand. “Lord Don Wynn,” she nodded to the Emerald Bomber, “obviously, you aren’t him… what the fuck is up with that?” she eyed Cal expectantly. “How are you pretending to be him? The guards outside look like they came with the place. ‘Lord Don Wynn’s’ been buying slaves and sponsoring you,” she pointed to the Heartfuries. “I know some of how the collars work. They need a slave master with a control rod thing. They have to have security measures. Probably, biometric and magical, if I had to guess. It means you can’t just take his control rod and use it.”
“That I won’t share. Operational security.”
Hammer was surprised when the others didn’t push further.
She found that she didn’t need to know the details either.
“Can we get some time to think about it?” Blackstar said.
“You have until you leave this place. You can have a room to discuss it with your team after dinner,” Cal Cruces said.
“Thanks, appreciate it.”
“The same offer for you,” he regarded the Emerald Bomber and the Furies.
“No need for us,” Alecto said.
“Slavery’s shit,” Tisiphone said.
“We’ll fight with you, but we won’t sell our lives,” Megaera said.
“Bad bitches teaming up!” Punchy pumped a fist.
“I got one problem with your plan,” Emerald Bomber said. “They aren’t just going to let people walk into that party armed. That might not be a problem for some of you,” she shot Hammer a baleful glare, “but I want my full gear if I’m going to be doing a last stand thing.”
“You’ll be provided with devices to smuggle your gear inside and I will make sure that you won’t have any problems getting them in past security,” Cal Cruces said.
“Yeah? That’s great, but I’m going to need proof,” Emerald Bomber said.
“Dayana, please,” he said.
The dark-skinned Heartfury pulled out an old smartphone and held it up.
“Magic users, what do you sense when you look at it?” he said.
Blackstar turned to one of her teammates.
“It’s got mana,” he said.
“We concur,” Megaera spoke for the Furies.
“Yeah, same,” the dark-haired young man said.
“I sense the same,” Ghost Sorcerer said.
“Me too, but y’all probably don’t care what I have to say on it,” Punchy said.
“You a techmage?” Emerald Bomber said.
Dayana shook her head.
“I don’t see what the big deal is. I started as a techmage and I had phones, tablets, laptops with spells—”
Dayana tapped and swiped on the phone’s surface before plunging her hand into the screen surface to pull out an assault rifle.
She handed the gun to Sparky and proceeded to pull out a pair of long knives in quick succession.
“Bag of holding,” Emerald Bomber muttered. “How did you do that?”
“I don’t see it,” Alecto said. “We have bags of holding. I’m certain that the guards would confiscate them if we tried to use them to smuggle weapons into the banquet.”
“Bags are a known quantity. The slavers will be looking out for them,” Blackstar said.
“You can buy them on the spires marketplace. Stupid expensive, though,” her warrior teammate grumbled.
“But they won’t be worried about phones or tablets,” Emerald Bomber said. “Those are new… I want a deal,” she turned to Cal Cruces.
“Teach me that spell and I get to keep what you’ll give me to smuggle my gear in. Er… I need my flying wing. A gun’s one thing, but can you give me something that I can fit my wing into that won’t be suspicious to the guards. It’d be suspicious if I tried to walk in there with a computer tower, monitor, keyboard and mouse.”
“I believe a tablet is enough for your wing. The rest of your gear can fit in a phone or two. And like I said, I’ll make sure that the guards won’t think anything is strange with you carrying multiple devices. Although, you’re right, an entire desktop setup would be a bit too much,” Cal Cruces said.
“The spell?” Emerald Bomber leaned forward eagerly.
“That isn’t mine to share. I’ll have to ask. If you give me time I can find out before you leave.”
“I’ll want to test it to make sure it works, plus the spell and I’m in,” she said.
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem to get you the first. The second depends,” he said. “One last thing. I believe that we can have world where people don’t live in fear and suffering. That everyone can find their own happiness—”
“Unless you’re happy with eating other people or being a rapist,” Punchy chimed in.
“Yeah, that goes without saying,” Cal Cruces stared at her like a disapproving father.
To Hammer’s surprise, Punchy actually looked sheepish.
“As I was saying. The world needs to be better. It’s hard enough with the monsters. Evil people will always exist. I’d just like to stop them before they do things like this,” he gestured to encompass the slaver lord’s mansion, “even as I speak, countless people in collars are being abused in the most mundane of ways, in the most vile of ways. Don’t we have to do something about it? I’ve decided that I do. For those of you uncertain, I present the same question. Will you do something about it? Still, regardless of your answer and assuming I survive this Quest. I’d like to extend my hands to you and your homes, your communities. If you want the same things that I want, then I’d like to do what I can to help you achieve that safe, happy, content, fulfilling life you deserve. We work together here and now, we work together for the future.”
Hammer watched Punchy biting her lip and squirming in her chair.
The one called Sparky elbowed her in the side.
She didn’t see the problem.
The speech was good enough for her.
She had heard similar sentiments in the old world, but you couldn’t actually do anything about it.
The rich and powerful had been too entrenched and changes that threatened their control, even if it would’ve bettered lives were snuffed out.
That’s why she barely had anything to eat growing up.
Her school cafeteria had thrown away food rather than give it to her just cause her mom had been short thanks to Walmart always messing with her schedule so she couldn’t get enough hours to be full-time. Her mom had to work three jobs and it was never enough. The strain ruined her health at forty. And since part-time meant no health insurance her mom dropped dead at forty-five.
She had worked so hard to avoid the same fate, but it was ever enough.
Things always just got more expensive while the pay stayed the same.
She had read, studied.
She knew what the rich and powerful were doing.
Just couldn’t do anything about it.
Sometimes in her darker moments, she wondered about the spires.
Had they destroyed the world?
Or had they saved it?
Cal Cruces’ words pushed her toward the latter.
And now… now she had the strength to do something about it.
Rich men made it so her mom and her lived a hard life.
Rich men were doing the same to the enslaved.
The spires had given them the ability to rip their veneer off.
The spires had given her the ability to do the same to their heads.