As the stagecoach approached, Thomas saw that it was three men in long black robes with purple trim blocking the path, each one holding a spear designed to stop horses. He slipped brass knuckles on to both hands before pulling the stagecoach to a halt and dismounting and walking up to the men.
“The lartores veritatis will not allow you to travel any further on your misguided path. Come with us and all will be right” called the first man as Thomas continued to walk up to them.
“That's right, surrender yo-”
The man's sentence was interrupted by Thomas’s right hook crashing into his skull. The brass knuckles caused a sickening crunch as bone broke. The man flopped to the ground, at least unconscious and possibly dead.
“How dare you!” called the man to Thomas left. Both men fell to all fours. Thomas could see shifting and rippling beneath their loose robes. Both mens faces began to change, fur sprouting and their mandibles and maxilla breaking and reforming into a snout. Thomas responded by pulling his foot back and launching a football kick right into the now elongated jaw of the man on the left. Bone shattered against Thomas' boot and the man's head snapped back before he flopped to the ground, dead.
Before Thomas could turn to deal with the last man, his transformation had completed. Now standing at 7 feet tall, the man pulled the shredder remains of his robes from him. Fur covered his entire body, he had the hind legs of a wolf but the arms of a man, both ending in elongated claws. His head was now entirely wolf-like with an extended snout and canine ears.
The werewolf dove at Thomas, slashing with his claws. He dodged but the speed of the beast was startling. Claws slashed across Thomas’s abdomen, leaving gashes through his suit and into his right side. Not one to give away free hits, Thomas counter punched with a heavy left hook that caught the beast behind the right ear, causing it to stumble and raise his hand to cover. Although not a fight ending strike, it let Thomas know that the beast could be hurt.
Thomas swung a right hook catching the beast in the jaw, standing it upright as it stumbled backwards. He closed the space and threw vicious hooks to the werewolfs body, looking to break ribs with his brass knuckles. The beast brought down a massive right paw but Thomas ducked under it then jumped and struck the wolf head with a left.
The werewolf fell to all fours, Thomas landed an overhand right and the beast fell to the ground. Before his opponent could recover, Thomas was on him raining blow after blow to his skull until there was no more movement.
Thomas dragged the bodies off the path, straightened out his suit, and wiped the blood on a handkerchief as well as he could before discarding it and returning to the stagecoach. Mr Liu sat up in the driver's seat, waiting.
“You fight many things with no hesitation.” said Mr Liu with a hint of a smile “Ah, I see you have been hurt.” he added, noticing the gashes on Thomas’ side “I have thing for this”. Mr Liu reached into a bag at his side and pulled out a large syringe with a series of small green crystals embedded in copper tubing on the side, it was attached by an arm to a small box with a crank handle. He drew up some liquid and they rapidly spun the handle. “I inject, heal wound” Thomas gave a nod and Mr Liu then injected the liquid all around the open wounds.
Thomas involuntarily drew a sharp breath in through his teeth as pain radiated from the injury. Looking down he was amazed to see his flesh begin to knit itself back together. After a couple of minutes the wounds were healed. This technology was so far beyond the bulky, room sized machines found in hospitals that used sanus crystal.
“Ah ha ha, very good. Was not certain would work”
Thomas shot Mr Liu a look
“Ha! I kid, I kid. I know what I am doing”
An unimpressed look fixed itself on Thomas’ face. His frown deepened as he looked down at the rip in his jacket, vest, and shirt.
“Do not worry, my friend, I will make you new suit, better suit, strong suit”
Thomas wasn’t sure what he meant by that but he was never one to turn down a free suit.
With the road clear and his injury healed, he urged the horses into motion for the final stretch to Blackwater.
Continuing north, they eventually passed out of the forest and met up with the Gila river. They followed the bank along the river until they came across the farm that Thomas had bought for his mother. The sprawling ranch dominated the landscape outside Blackwater. The sun was just starting to rise as they pulled up to the farmhouse to find Maggie sitting on the porch cradling a shotgun.
“Took you long enough”
A smile crossed Thomas’ face as he dismounted and walked up the stairs
“Uh, hold it right there” Said Maggie raising he shotgun “How do I know you’re really my Tommy and not some kinda skinwalker”
Thomas smirked as he stepped up so the barrels of the shotgun were on his chest
“Ahhh come ere” said Maggie as she dropped the gun and pulled Thomas in for a hug “It’s so good to see you, my boy. I’ve missed you. Come on, come on, inside I’ll get you something to eat and you can get some rest. Tell you friend to come too”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Thomas waved Mr Liu over and the three of them went inside to the warmth and light of the farmhouse. They ate a simple porridge and drank some tea, the warm food a welcome change from the road meals they had been eating.
Thomas slept late into the morning before rising and preparing for the real work to start. Donning a fresh, and intact, suit he went to rouse Mr Liu only to find him missing. A slight panic came over him before Maggie called out “Yer friend has headed out to the barn already, full’a beans that fella”
Thomas had arranged for Mr Liu to use one of the barns as a workshop. The location of the farm between Blackwater and the mine they were also going to use made it an ideal location.
Stepping out of the farmhouse, Thomas stretched and rolled his neck as he let the warm sun shine down on him. Making his way over to the barn, he found Mr Liu had already unpacked all of his equipment and had turned the space into a fastidiously organized workshop.
“Ahh you are here. Come, come see what I have for you.” said Mr Liu, waving Thomas in and directing him to a mannequin wearing a well tailored navy suit. A well tailored navy suit that had been in Thomas’ suitcase.
Thomas gave a disapproving look
“Ah do not worry, I have not damaged your suit. I have made strong, here test” Mr liu said while handing over a knife
Thomas looked at the knife, outraged. He had paid a lot of money for that suit, he wasn’t going to purposefully damage it.
Seeing his look, Mr Liu responded “Ohkay, I show you” before slashing at the suit with another knife. Thomas lunged to try and stop him, but didn’t make it in time. He watched in horror as the blade stuck the suit. But then he became confused as it did nothing. Stepping forward he ran his finger over where the blade had hit and found no damage at all. Grabbing the knife, he tested its edge to make sure this wasn’t a trick and found it to be an extremely sharp and well made knife.
“I tell you, I make suit strong. It not…what is word…invincible, but give some protection to cut and stab and burn.”
Thomas ran his hand over the suit, impressed by what Mr Liu had been able to achieve in such a short amount of time. Maybe Mr Porter wasn’t crazy for using so many resources to get the man here.
“I have other thing for you. I see you use metal fists. I improve” Mr Liu said while handing Thomas a pair of, what appeared to be, knights gauntlets. Segmented shining metal allowed full articulation of hands and wrist while still giving the additional damage like brass knuckles. At the back of each gauntlet was a sizable piece of fire crystal embedded into a raised, copper socket.
“Here, you try these on and punch this” said Mr Liu while gesturing to another mannequin.
Impressed with his work so far, Thomas figured he’d give this a try as well. Putting both gauntlets on, he got into a conventional boxer's stance. As he clenched his fist, the gauntlet ignited. Although he was a bit surprised he didn’t let it show and threw a straight right at about half power. He was just striking a mannequin so he didn’t want to hit it too hard.
As his punch landed, an explosion burst from the gauntlet, sending the, now flaming, mannequin cartwheeling backwards.
Mr Liu trotted over with a bucket of water and doused the abused dummy before giving Thomas a thumbs up. “Ha ha! I knew it would work. Inside case on bench there you will find other crystal to change what magic is used.”
Thomas looked at the bench and, as Mr Liu said, there was a box with what appeared to be ice, lightning, and force crystals all worked and set to fit into the gauntlet's sockets.
Although Thomas was impressed, this all seemed a bit more burdensome than he was used to. As if reading his thoughts, Mr Liu piped up “You thinking too bulky, yes? Well look inside the suit Jacket” opening the jacket, Thomas saw a series of clips “crystals can be carried here. And here” indicated Mr Liu while pointing at an internal harness “can hold gloves. Easy like fall off log”
Thomas felt a bit overwhelmed by the generosity that Mr Liu was showing him. He wasn’t used to such kindness. The circles he had traveled in for all of his adult life had relied on aggression, and grit, and violence. Outside of his mother, he couldn’t recall anyone showing him this amount of kindness. Sure, Mr Porter was generous and gregarious, but there was always the understanding that it was business and that he would turn on anyone if it benefitted him.
For the first time in his memory, Thomas felt himself get a bit misty eyed. Uncertain how to thank Mr Liu he shook the man's hand before pulling him in for a hug.
“Oh ho ho, you are most welcome my friend”
After composing himself, Thomas pulled a small notebook from his pocket. In it he had jotted down the steps that would need to be taken in order to carry out the task they had been sent here for. He indicated to Mr Liu what he planned on doing that day before turning to leave. Stopping at the door, he turned back and gave Mr Liu a rare smile.
After riding into Blackwater, Thomas began to work down his jobs list. First he touched base with the man that had been installed at the post office in order to control the flow of messages and packages in and out of town. The man came off somewhat rude, his attention never seemed to be fully given to the person in front of him and he had to be reminded of what business they were conducting several times. Thomas gave the man a significant sum of money to be given to Oscar and his team upon completion of their part in Mr Porter's plans, and got directions to the other people in town he would have to see.
Heading to one of the temporary lodgings in town, he next organized the workmen and mercenaries that had been sent into town ahead of them to aid with some of the more labor intensive aspects of the job. They had already established a presence at the old mine out of town and had managed to collect enough of the strange metal found there to have a chain mail net made. The leader of this group was about as generic a mercenary as you could find. Scruffy beard, cigarette in his mouth, ten-gallon hat, and a bandolier wrapped over his shoulder. He was competent enough to actually be part of Mr Porter’s organization and had so far completed all the tasks required of him. Thomas left him with instructions to meet at the farm tomorrow morning with a crew of dependable men.
A visit to the apothecary was next on his list. The man obviously had a crippling opium addiction, and although this would normally put Thomas off from working with him, in this instance it was beneficial as the apothecary didn’t ask any questions when he purchased a significant amount of chloroform.
Finally, he made contact with a man called Vi’iki, a local Akimel O’odham tracker they had employed to find and keep an eye on one of the important elements required for this plan to work. In an upstairs room of the saloon, the two men stood over a map for the area. Thomas drew a path and circled an area before looking to Vi’iki for confirmation.
“Yes, that is where you will find them. The mother will give birth in the coming days however, so the father will be very aggressive. You may have better luck collecting fur at another time”
The lie told to Vi’iki about his plans was a necessary one. If he found out Thomas intended to kidnap the Phoenix fox, he would certainly try to stop him. The many moving parts of this plan already gave Thomas reason for concern, he didn’t need to get offside with the Akimel O’odham as well.