While John and Ayra were both still fighting, Aaron had snuck up on the advertisement board which had a small construction stairway on the back. Trying not to make a noise, he drew four daggers and coated them with his tranquilizing liquid. Once at the top, he waited, and prayed. Waited for one more shot to be fired, while praying that it would not hit.

Not having to wait long, the shot was fired, a loud noise, followed by a subtle vibration in the rusty scaffolding on the advertisement board, allowed Aaron to step out quickly and throw his daggers at the wide open back of the shooter.

In the heat of the moment, Aaron dropped one of the four, though, with a thud, the other three dug themselves into the back of the shooter.

“Crap! What the hell?” the scruffy haired man shouted in short pain, dropping his rifle next to him. He looked behind him and saw Aaron closing in. “You. I didn’t think you’d participate in the fight.”

“Seems like you are still awake after three of those daggers, perhaps it's the adrenaline?” Aaron thought out loud, walking up the man and kicking aside his rifle. “Well, by the looks of it your movement still seems to be impaired. Like John would say, what works, works.”

In front of the man, whose body felt numb and awkwardly unresponsive, lied a cigarette. Still lit, the tip fallen to ashes. He tried to inch forward by scraping his chin on the ground with what little strength he had left and stretched out his tongue and lips, trying to get a hold of his cigarette. Just when he was about to give up, realising that it was futile, Aaron picked it up and held it to the man’s mouth.

“Ta!” the man said, biting into the filter and starting to smoke. Tightly held between his lips, he said, “Well then, whatcha think? Is your friend still holding up?”

Hands away from the trigger, Aaron took the rifle to look through the scope, witnessing John’s victory. “Indeed.” he said in a single breath, sitting down and leaning back. “Why were you after us, if I may ask?”

“I guess you haven’t even got the least bit of formal decency to introduce yourself, eh?” the man said, exhaling smoke.

“My bad, I suppose I didn’t expect people who tried to kill us just seconds ago to want a formal introduction. Fine then, my name is Aaron, and now back to the question at hand,” Aaron said, while watching the sun at the horizon.

“Name’s Leon, Leo for short. And we didn’t try to kill you… Let me rephrase that actually. We weren’t supposed to anyways. Ayra was. But our orders were merely to capture you,” he explained, shaking his head to break off the ash from the tip of the cigarette on the metal platform.

As Aaron began to unpack a few first aid supplies, he asked “Who’s orders?”

Thinking for a second, the man sighed and answered. “It’s not that much of a secret I guess. The Sheriff did. Although I’d imagine a lot of people being after your head right ‘bout now.”

Aaron began to disinfect and cover the dagger wounds with fabric to stop the bleeding.

Leon’s face twitched, expecting it to burn, even biting into the filter of the cigarette. Though to his surprise, it was completely numb.

“Done,” Aaron said while Leon was still expecting some kind of pain.

“How do you doctors do that?” Leon asked.

“Do what?”

“You know, one moment you think it’s gonna be hell and suddenly it’s over without noticing it.

“Ah,” Aaron chuckled, “Business secret!”

Aaron began to help up the man to sit straight, cuffing the hands together in front.

“Now lemme ask you a question, why’re you not killing me yet?” Leon asked.

Aaron froze for a second, not moving a muscle before slowly leaning back to get into a thinking pose. “I suppose it’s simply because I have no reason to.”

“But you said it yourself,” Leon wondered. “We, from your view, tried to kill you.”

“You didn’t though.” Aaron said. “If I tried to kill all the things that could’ve killed me, then I’d have to wonder how big my list would be.”

Slightly moving his fingers again, and being able to lift his arms, Leon grabbed his cigarette, or what was left of it by now, and held onto it with his hands.

“Is the tranq starting to fade?” Aaron asked.

“If I say yes, will ya jab me?” Leon wondered, not wanting to hold onto his cig with his teeth and lips anymore.

“No, I just wanted to keep stats,” Aaron said, writing down a few notes into a small notebook which he pulled out of his pocket.

Just when Aaron put away his notebook, John arrived at the top of the board, slowly placing down Ayra, before falling nose first onto the metal platform with only a mumble coming from him. “Woman, I hope you know that you are heavy as-”

“John!” Aaron interrupted. “That’s not a way to call a woman.”

John turned his head, nose bright red, “You know she tried to kill me right? I can call her heavy however often I’d like. Now patch me up, I am starting to feel my legs again… which in this case is a bad thing.”

Ayra was still annoyed by her loss and had no idea what they were muttering about. All she saw was Leon behind Aaron, having a smoke and sitting there almost leisurely while waving at her. “Are these two guys clowns?” she asked him in a high pitched voice.

“Seems so, eh?” he chuckled.

After several minutes, Aaron had attended John’s wounds and patched his legs up as best he could. The result were large bandages strapped around his legs and arms, which had apparently been hit by shrapnel from the shots.

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Ayra sat straight. Her hands were tied while she still had no movement in her artificial limbs, staring down John throughout the entire time. “What the hell are you doing?” she grumbled.

Surprised, John and Aaron both looked at her, while Leon cared to explain. “I was just as baffled, but they don’t seem ta care about killing us.”

“We never sought to kill anybody, especially now, we have no reason to take your life.” Aaron claimed. “The two of you lost, and can barely move right now.”

“Yet you brought war to us and infiltrated our country!” Ayra shouted, trying to point at them with her right arm, forgetting that she can’t move it.

John closed his eyes, feeling the winds from that height brush past his face and through his hair. Cooling off the heat, and calming his mind as he prepared to speak up.

“We didn’t bring war to your country and neither did we mean to infiltrate it,” he said, looking into both, Leon’s and Ayra’s faces. “Our King had this planned several years ago, while I was still a kid. He tried to make the previous Sterling detective do his bidding, though when he refused, he was killed. Wanting to find out more about his death, I got caught up in the same proposition. Framing this country into war.”

“Seems like you took it on too, bastard!” Ayra shouted, but was nudged by Leon to calm down.

“He wasn’t done yet, so just stay calm and listen, Ayra.” Leon interrupted, and gave the word back to John after Ayra let out a grunt.

“Thanks. It’s true, the wish of the King became reality. But not simply because of me. He has waited for such a long time now, even if I had refused, he’d have gone through with his plan. Instead I decided to leave him a warning, all while coming here trying to fight alongside you, against him,” he scratched his head. “I guess, given your attack on me, that is the last thing you’d want to do though.”

Leon and Ayra tried to comprehend the story. Both were too confused to bother arguing. They knew too little and didn’t know what to believe. “The warning you left. It was a bomb, but it wasn’t enough right? You should’ve just taken his life when you had the chance!” Leon said.

“Possibly,” John agreed. “It might have saved us some trouble, but my father went with the ideal that justice can only be claimed without killing. As a detective. No. As someone who represents the law, I believe everyone has a right to be judged accordingly.”

“Fool,” Ayra said, but was cut off by John.

“Besides, for what he did, death would be quick way out. I’d rather he rot away in prison all while losing everything he’s built up,” he mumbled, almost whispering the last few words.

Snapping out of his mumbling, John leaned forward and removed his storage pack from his back. Giving it a light shake, the small amount of water inside splashed, creating an echo within the metal tanks. He screwed open the lid on the top, circled around Ayra, to her back, and poured the rest of his water into her tank.

“What are you trying to do?” Ayra barked at him.

“Giving you a hand,” he smirked. “A leg too, I guess.”

Knowing she had no way to fight against it, she sat still. She did not understanding her situation at all. Not understanding Johnathan one bit. Whether he should be trusted or not, it was all too weird for her. To her, he was like an open book, specked in riddles. She had heard of him, seen him, fought him and yet, can’t read into his actions. “What are you trying to accomplish with all this?” she whispered.

John closed up all the lids, checked the pipes, to make sure they weren’t damaged, and sat himself down next to Aaron, in front of Ayra.

“I simply think that it's a waste to be enemies, and that it would be good to just get along and fight a common enemy.” John explained.

A very shallow sizzle could be heard, her arm and leg twitched for a second before calming again. She slowly opened and closed her mechanical hand.

“It’s not that much water, so until you get home, you should use it sparingly,” John said.

A shallow look came from Aaron, aimed at his now black haired friend who noticed and nodded. He untied them, to their own surprise.

“This should be a lot more comfortable now, right?” John asked.

Pumping a fist with her mechanical arm, Ayra said under her breath, “This is nonsense!”

“Listen up now,” John spoke up, while almost immediately Leon and Ayra both looked at him. “What you do now, is your own choice. Either you believe me, and let me help you. Or you kill me on the spot.”

“John!” Aaron shouted. “You-”

Before he could even muster a lecture, Ayra’s arm blade extended and swung towards John. Aimed at his throat. In that flash of a moment, Aaron’s mind wanted him to look away, fearing what would happen. But with every fibre of his will, he kept his eyes open and tried to pull John back. Grabbing the man on his shoulders, Aaron pulled, but John resisted. Pushed against it. He wanted to keep trying, but it went by too quickly. He couldn’t save him from the inevitable.

As a clicking sound rang, Aaron’s hands let loose. The blade had stopped. What could be the diameter of a hair, was all which kept the blade away from John’s throat.

She stopped her attack. Ayra bit her lip as she looked at the person in front of her.

John gulped, feeling his adam’s apple touch the blade. Though still unwavered. Not having moved a muscle, not even having blinked. He simply looked in her eyes and accepted her judgement.

“Idiot,” she muttered. “You would’ve been dead had I not stopped.”

“But you did stop,” John leaned back, taking a deep breath, as Aaron slowly, shiveringly, let go of him. “I take it you understand my position now?”

“Yes, however, we have our orders.”

With those words, she quickly smacked him on the head with the blunt wide side of the sword, while Leon aimed at Aaron with his rifle, saying, “Sorry, man. This might hurt.”

Similar to his partner, Leon used the shoulder stock to smack Aaron on the head.

The result was both, John and Aaron, unconscious on the advertisement board.

With little effort, Ayra and Leon had tied them up and sat them into a trailer, attached to two horses. Right before going home, Ayra remembered something. She walked over to where her captives had previously beaten two renegade members of the Blades. With them tied up too, and the bag of what was left of the sandwiches, she loaded them into the trailer and went home with her partner.

Not long after, it got dark. The air cooled down rapidly and the sky became clear and starry. The wind picked up. Familiar with the desert, they knew what it would mean and they decided to take a detour. Instead of going past the many dunes, where John and Aaron had previously crossed the desert, they went to an abandoned war zone.

Upon entering, the four captives had woken up and the wind had picked up even more, blurring their vision. Leon quickly stuffed a towel into the captives’ mouths before tying each of them at the back of the head to prevent them from talking.

While John’s and Aaron’s heads were still throbbing in pain from the hit, they opened their eyes ever so carefully. Trying not to get sand into them. Though the storm covered most of the scenery, they could see what was close to them. Large wrecks of something wooden. Planks, rounded connected planks and even some longer poles, on the top of which, hung the remains of a tattered cloth. A sail.

“A shipwreck?” They thought, though could not speak.

Ship-like structures were broken, torn apart and scattered all over the place. Some upside down, but most of them largely buried.

Large metal connections acted as the frame of the planks. Though, from the looks of it, everything was much thinner. They couldn’t help but wonder how all of this got here. Why were these things stranded in this place?

What lies in this place they are in. Where will they be brought? What will happen to them? All that and more in the next chapter of Steam’s Shadow.