Tjao Chronicles: Chapter Three

Growing Pains

Ahiga didn't like the look on Cade's face as he walked into the briefing room. He felt somewhat infantilized as Cade gave them all a look like a disappointed mother from across the semi-circle table.

"The good news is that the media loved you guys in Gateway City. Mostly they thought Ricky and Yekaterina were…photogenic." Cade said with a grimace as Ricky and Yekaterina leaned over Ae-Cha to high-five each other. "The Committee meanwhile…well, they weren't shitting rainbows that you blew up the Spear Thrower of Nuuk the Hero. They wanted disciplinary action. I talked them down from it by pointing out that this is a new group. Defending such a powerful artifact was probably too sensitive for you to handle this early on. For that I apologize."

Ahiga felt offended. The Spear Thrower wasn't even BETSA property! And it didn't get destroyed! Although I probably shouldn't say that last part.

Cade frowned. "I have arranged for you to be assigned a less sensitive mission when one comes down the pipe. For the time being you aren't under official reprimand, but only because I informed the Committee that punishing you after you saved 27 hostages would be a PR disaster. The Efagsians were harder to talk down. They don't want you anywhere near their border ever again." Cade's face warped into what Ahiga thought Cade intended to be a smile. "Of course, when push comes to shove, I doubt they'll turn down a mag squad when they need one. You are all dismissed."

As Ahiga got up Ricky leaned over to whisper something into his ear. "Ooooo you got us in troubbbbble!"

"Shut up Ricky, and why does your breath smell like pinecones?"

Ricky blew on his hand and sniffed curiously. "I blew a lumberjack."

Ahiga narrowed his eyes. "Get the hell out Ricky."

"We're leaving anyways." Ricky said before sitting back down in his chair and crossing his arms. "But I am needlessly contradictory."

"I counted on it." Ahiga said before walking out of the room and locking the glass door behind him leaving only Ricky inside.

"The joke's on you! I always wanted to go to an escape room!" Ricky yelled at Ahiga as he walked down the hallway.

Ahiga headed into the living room area where he saw Liban on the couch checking his phone. Ahiga felt awkward seeing Liban sitting there in shorts and a t-shirt and tugged on the neck of his grey hoodie before veering at a ninety-degree angle into the kitchen and opening the fridge to distract himself.

"God, I have the worst friggin' luck with men." Ahiga nearly exploded in embarrassment thinking his internal monologue had somehow escaped his head before he realized it was Yekaterina's voice.

He looked up to see her sitting on the edge of the sink wearing jeans and a white hoodie the same color as her hair. "Jeez Ahiga what did I say? You aren't one of those people who're embarrassed to talk about sex, are you?"

Ahiga shook his head. "No, I'm cool. It's whatever."

"Cool. Which way do you swing anyways?"

"Uhhhhh." Ahiga struggled to form words.

"Fuck that sounded bad, ignore what I said I'm not going to pry." Yekaterina slapped her forehead as she turned red with embarrassment. "I just say things without thinking sometimes you know?"

Ahiga made placating gestures with his hands. "It's cool it's cool, I'm not offended or anything!" Gods when will this conversation be over? He thought to himself.

"Good. I'm going to go let Ricky loose before he starts trying to escape the meeting room using parkour and breaks the glass."

Ahiga finally breathed out when she left the room.

I'm not afraid of the topic, I just…don't think it's important. I have more important things to think about, there's so many things going on in the world that…that stuff should be the last thing on my mind. I'm a BETSA agent, it's not professional to be distracted.

Ahiga finally looked into the fridge and grabbed a Professor Belcher soda and a box of leftover take-out Dravidian food to reheat. He turned around to see Ricky entering the kitchen with his dress jacket tied around his waist, his undershirt torn in several places, and blood on his hands.

"I went into the air vents. There was a possum. The possum was friendly. The rat was not. The rat is no more."

"Wash your hands, Ricky." Liban said as he walked into the kitchen. "Not in the kitchen sink though, in fact go to the laundry room and hose off with soap before touching anything."

Ricky obeyed with a traumatized look in his eyes.

Liban turned towards Ahiga with a look of confusion on his face. "Wait should we do something about the possum?"

"I'll do it!" Ahiga blurted out.

Liban looked confused. "Do what?"

"Capture and remove the possum!"

Liban smiled. "Oh, that'd be cool because I wouldn't want an exterminator to hurt the little guy."

Ahiga briefly questioned his choices in life, but Liban's smile made him confident in his decisions.

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

Ahiga walked to the edge of the pine stand next to the BETSA housing building while the possum dangled by its tail from his hand. It still insisted on playing dead. Ahiga briefly looked up at the sunset cresting the hills above Sharkville and descending into the ocean below.

The town looked quaint from his position, a small port industrial town that time had forgotten. From here he couldn't see the poverty or social stratification between rich and poor, mag and non-mag, human and non-human, white and not.

He set the possum down. "Go on little guy. You put up a good fight, but you need to be with your fellows in the woods. Find a nice possum gal' and make a bunch of hissing babies." The possum slowly got up, looked at Ahiga, rubbed its face, hissed, and trotted into the pines.

Ahiga took a deep breath of fresh, piny air with a hint of seawater and looked back down at the town below. One of his better foster homes had been in Sharkville, they hadn't tried to push their religion on him or make him pretend like they already had a loving relationship. He had childhood friends here he remembered fondly.

I should look them up. He thought to himself. Maybe one or two of them would like to hang out sometime.

"Ahiga!" He heard Kobold shout. "Rosenthal wants to see you! He also said that I am far more intelligent than him and that Sarah admitted I was the better lover!"

"Alright Kobold I'm coming." He said as he turned around and walked back towards the building.

…………………………………………….

Rosenthal sat in the library with a pipe in his mouth and a tome under his nose. "Ah, young Ahiga! I'm afraid this may be the last of our meetings for a while, but I expect it will be a productive one! Tell me my boy, how brushed up are you on your history?"

Ahiga shrugged. "Benedict Arnold was the first Consul of America, Von Lichtenstein was the leader of Nordic Pride, Cabot discovered the Northwest Passage, the Indian Revolution started the Frozen War. The basics."

Rosenthal nodded with a smile and closed his tome before turning it to face Ahiga. "I assume you know what this book is then?"

Ahiga looked down at the gold-colored book nearly 18 inches across in both directions and at least a foot thick. On the front was an engraving of a woman with two wings standing with her six arms outstretched with one of each bearing either a sword, a spear, a mace, an axe, a wrench, or a lyre.

"It's a Celestial Manuscript. That seems more like religion than history though. Hold on wait, you don't think something in there is connected to my abilities, do you?"

"Ah, but I do think that young Ahiga. How much do you know about Cu-Chalim lore?"

"I'm sorry but is this a joke Rosenthal? What next? Are you going to ask me if my ten-times-great grandaddy is Jesus?"

Rosenthal calmly took off his glasses and wiped them with a napkin. "The Celestial Manuscript is generally accurate in regards to the broad strokes of human history before the fall of the Ice Age civilizations. We have found Ent-Elim skulls in the Atacama and Antarctica, some magical artifacts from the Ice Age civilizations do suggest extraterrestrial make, and we know the Sri Jayans crossed the stars so there's no reason to think the so-called Gods of Life couldn't have. And there's no reason to think they couldn't have influenced humanity. The hero kings were said to have been changed by the gods, made into Cu-Chalim. Both the Celestial Manuscript, the histories of the Sub-Kemetians, and the oral lore of the ghouls and night kin claim this to be true. Cu-Chalim were said to have been able to manifest control over magic instinctively just like mags, but unlike mags their control wasn't limited to one field of magic. For instance, the strength accessed by Atlas mags."

Ahiga exhaled and inhaled deeply and closed his eyes as he tried to keep his cool. "The Cu-Chalim are dead. Extinct. I can't be one because they don't exist anymore."

"Ahiga, I understand this may be hard information to process, but the fact is that mags do not gestate multiple unrelated abilities out of nowhere. Not to mention the fact that your…green lightning was not only new, but also not an ability known to modern arcanology. Yes, the Cu-Chalim were supposed to have been wiped out in the Relic Wars and the Flood, but it is utterly improbable that they had no descendants. I am forced to draw conclusions were the evidence leads me, and right now the evidence points me to the improbable conclusion that you have, at the very least, come from a family line of relatively undiluted Cu-Chalim."

"Even if that's true how does it help me!" Ahiga yelled.

"Because we know at least a little bit about how the Cu-Chalim used their magic you ninny!" Rosenthal shouted in exasperation.

Ahiga was taken aback. "Really?"

Rosenthal nodded. "Yes! It's in here," he tapped the Celestial Manuscript, "and If you'll accompany me to the training gym, I'd like to try something."

…………………………………………………

"All mag magic is based around personal energy, some call it qi or Ruah, but I prefer to keep it culturally neutral and call it meta-particulate circulation. The energy is part of your soul, it flows through you mirroring your body and being made out of parts reminiscent of physical organs. As above, so below, that kind of thing. Mags access this energy instinctually and change it into new forms, a fireball for a pyromancer, a bolt of electricity for an electromancer, a view into a possible future for a pre-cog. The energy reacts to emotion, the fundamental unit of consciousness. Think of it like muscles reacting to signals from neurons. It is mastered and shaped by emotion into more refined forms. You need to draw upon your energy by shaping your emotions, by mastering them, by summoning them and using them. Think back to the emotion you felt when you brought about the green lightning. What did it feel like?"

Ahiga looked out across the bare concrete room at the steel plate target. Ninety meters away, four inches across, six feet across the ground, how'd I aim on the ship? Did the green lightning have weight? Is it like an arrow, or a bullet?"

"Ahiga! You need to think about the experience! Not the facts."

Ahiga turned to face Rosenthal with a look of confusion and concern. "Wait, are you psionic?"

Rosenthal shook his head. "I should hope not! I'd hate to know what my ex-wife thinks of me. I'm just really good at reading faces, most people betray their emotions through minute facial muscle movements. It's something my grandfather taught me. Now, you need to focus on the task at hand."

Ahiga turned back towards the target. What was I thinking back then? I was afraid…no. More than that. I was afraid that if I didn't fix the situation, that it would be fault if they died. How often do I have that emotion? I think, I think I always feel the need to fix things, like if I don't fix something whatever bad thing happens next will be my fault. So, I just have to convince myself that if I don't destroy that steel plate it'll be my fault? But where's the motivation? Maybe if I don't destroy the steel plate, I'll never control this ability, and any bad thing that happens that I could have prevented will be my fault. Yes, that's it! I have to blast that plate to be strong enough to protect everyone!

He held out his arm and summoned the feeling. He felt power course through him. Nothing happened. Maybe it's a psychological thing, he thought to himself. Maybe I'm having trouble imagining it coming from my arm, wait what's one of the major laws of magic? Symbology! So maybe if I symbolically make my hand more like a weapon…

He twisted his right hand into the shape of a pistol and made as if to use his right thumb as a gun sight. "Get away from my friends pew pew." He whispered under his breath.

Rosenthal sighed. "Please be serious about this Ahi-"

A bolt of vibrating green energy coursed down his arm and rushed out of the tips of his topmost fingers. It made a screeching electronic noise as it tore through the air creating a shockwave of heat before striking the steel plate and burning a hole through the center like a red-hot poker being held up against a piece of pulp paper. Ahiga panicked as the beam continued past the steel plate and into the concrete wall behind. He tried releasing his hand from its gun-like shape to stop the beam and it ceased as soon as he moved his fingers out of position.

"Well fuck me blind and call me sally." Rosenthal whispered. "A finger gun was the trick."

"No, it was only part of it." Ahiga said. "I needed the emotion, but I also needed to trick my brain, hell maybe I needed to trick the universe, into thinking I could do it."

Rosenthal nodded. "Good. Now let's see if we can get a similar effect for your shield."

Ahiga heard the door to the training room swing open violently and turned around to see Kobold with a hateful look in his eye and a bolt-action rifle in his hands. He quickly raised the rifle to his shoulder and aimed it at Rosenthal.

"Now you die you arrogant prick!"

Ahiga acted quickly holding out his hands and engulfing himself and Rosenthal in a bubble of translucent green energy just as Kobold pulled the trigger. Before Ahiga knew it the bullet was suspended in the midst of the forcefield directly in front of Rosenthal. Ahiga looked down and saw his hands clenched in tension, he looked back up at Kobold and thought about offensive action and his shield immediately dissolved into nothing. He crouched to leap on the ginger man and restrain him until he felt Rosenthal's hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down Ahiga! It was just a trick to get you on the defensive!"

"A trick!?" Ahiga yelled. "He used a real ass gun!"

Rosenthal smiled and lifted his turtleneck shirt over his belly to reveal a white shirt with colored geometric patches sewn into it underneath. "My faith shirt. Even if you had failed, I would have been fine."

"Yeah, it's not like I grabbed faith-shirt piercing bullets or anything." Kobold said with an awkward chuckle.

Rosenthal raised a brow. "You…didn't, because those don't exist."

"I know," Kobold replied with a sigh, "I researched extensively."

Ahiga lightly punched Rosenthal in the ribcage. "You tricky asshole!"

Rosenthal smiled down on him and Ahiga hated being reminded that Rosenthal was nearly seven feet tall compared to his measly five-foot one. "Ah, but it worked my boy! Forgive the manipulation! It was for a good cause! You are now on the path to controlling your new skills and now have a groundwork for dealing with any new, new abilities that may pop up! And with that, my job here is done."

"You're leaving?" Kobold said with disappointment tinging his voice.

"Yes, my old friend, I need to file a report on this whole affair for the Bureau. But I expect that they may want me back here soon enough for some other remarkable occurrence. Until then," Rosenthal turned his head back towards Ahiga, "I expect Ae-Cha can help you with your investigation into wielding your abilities. You will do great things young Ahiga, of that, I am absolutely certain."

Ahiga nodded. "I won't let you down Rosenthal."

Rosenthal smiled wider. "Please my boy, my friends call me Rose."

……………………………………………

Cade walked in front of the room once more. Ahiga smelled a hint of glee about the man, glee curdled with anxiety.

"Ciudad de los Gigantes is a beautiful city don't you all agree? I sure hope you do because that's where you're going next." Cade threw a stack of papers down on the meeting room table. "There's been mysterious activity in the tunnels under the city lately. People disappearing into drains, mysterious figures coming out of manholes, reports of shapeshifters in homeless camps, security camera footage of police being handed wads of cash before leaving suspicious areas. We think there might be a flesh market active in the city."

Ahiga's stomach flopped. There were lots of magics that benefited from human parts. It was a great taboo to buy and sell them, but it didn't stop the worst of the worst from doing it. Parts stolen from morgues or medical centers were one thing, parts taken from kidnapped people were on a whole other level of bad. That went so far beyond the pale that even the Guild forbid it.

"You all are to look around, find the missing people, and bring the perpetrators to justice. Thankfully there's nothing valuable in the area for you to blow up." Cade looked at Ahiga who felt like folding up into himself. "Get to it, don't piss the locals off." Cade said before pulling out his flip phone and walking out of the room in a hurry.

"Anyone else get the vibe that Cade wasn't breast fed as a child?" Ricky said before Liban calmly rolled up a magazine and smacked him across the back of the head.

Liban walked to where Cade had been standing "Let's get to work everyone."

………………………………………………………

The helicopter flew over endless suburbs. Ahiga thought the sprawling city below was ugly. All brown brush, grey concrete, and black asphalt. The only green was watered lawns and palm fronds.

"Alright everyone," Liban said over their headsets, "we don't know how to access the tunnels so I'm splitting us into search groups. Me and Ae-Cha will search in the abandoned homeless camp near the juncture of the river and the main drainage system. Ricky and Kobold will investigate downriver where there's been a shapeshifter sighting, Yekaterina and Ahiga will be in the midriver where Highway 47 passes over. Everyone clear on their roles?" Everyone nodded. "Good. Then we'll drop off Ricky and Kobold first."

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The helicopter landed in a deserted area where the river looked like a real river with vegetation, albeit still filled with plastic garbage. Ricky and Kobold jumped out and headed into the weeds as the helicopter took off once more. They flew a few more miles before landing in an area of bare concrete.

"This is your stop Ahiga and Kat." Ae-Cha said over the intercom. "Be safe down there. We don't know what's going on and you need to be prepared for extreme danger."

Yekaterina and Ahiga nodded and leaped out of the helicopter onto the bed of the concrete river below. As soon as they touched the ground the helicopter took off once more.

"This place reeks." Yekaterina said pinching her nose.

"You're telling me," Ahiga responded as he looked around, "I've never talked about it before, but I have an enhanced sense of smell."

Yekaterina looked at him incredulously. "Do you shit rainbows and piss hot chocolate too?"

"Only on Mondays." He responded curtly.

He looked around once more as anxiety gripped him. He disliked their strategic position. The Ciudad de los Gigantes River in this area was a concrete trench filled with water only intermittently and filled with trash always. A muddy trickle now ran down the center of the so-called river while all around him weeds, trash bags, shopping carts, food wrappers, and other debris piled up and was picked over by crows, stray dogs, and seagulls. He spotted one stripped-down car, three busted bicycles, and several tattered tents whose inhabitants seemed to look at them with suspicion.

Can't say I blame them. If we were cops, we'd be here to beat and evict them.

His muscles tensed as he remembered it wouldn't take a lot of money for someone to convince people with very little to tell you if they had seen anybody snooping around your elicit operation. He also briefly worried about being confronted by mundane gangs in the area which would both blow their cover and be annoying. He ultimately decided that such a thing was best not dwelled upon when they could face real danger.

They walked for another mile before coming to the overpass, Ahiga smelt something dead and glanced over to see a chupacabra in a corner feeding on a large rat. The reptilian-simian creature hissed at him before a bearded black man put his hand on its spines and soothed them down. The creature purred and thumped its kangaroo-like feet against the ground in joy.

"Don't mind my little buddy Sirabro here, he's all hiss no bite." The man smiled and Ahiga glanced down at his black pants and leather jacket. Something felt off about the man's vibe, he carried himself like he expected combat at a moment's notice, like a warrior.

"Y'all here for the party?" The scruffy man asked.

"You know it." Yekaterina answered.

Ahiga glanced at her for just a moment. She snorted at him and turned back towards the man with the chupacabra.

"He's a bit of a stick in the mud," she put her arm around his shoulder, "ain't that right honey?"

Ahiga suppressed a sigh, "eh. It was your idea not mine. I'm just going with the flow." He tried to look relaxed but felt somewhat awkward with Yekaterina's arm around his shoulder.

The man looked them up and down and Ahiga was suddenly conscious of every part of his looks. His work boots, his jeans, his blue t-shirt, his favorite jean jacket, his twin braids, and his turquoise and silver necklace. Yekaterina was dressed more casually in the same white hoodie and jeans from earlier and shifted on her feet with an annoyed look on her face.

"Well? Are you going to let us in or what?" She crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.

"What's the password?" The man asked.

Ahiga felt a tingling at the back of his skull.

Ahiga, this is Ae-Cha, we bribed a guard to get access to another entrance ahead. The password is "blossom".

Thank you, Ae-Cha. Ahiga thought as the tingling receded. He looked the man in the eyes and repeated the password.

"Hm. Yeah that's right." The man turned around with an air of disbelief and touched an area of the concrete side of the riverbed in a deliberate spiral pattern causing a section of the wall to slide to the side and reveal an entrance to a set of stairs plunging into the earth below. "You can go on through." He said with tenseness in his voice.

Yekaterina grabbed Ahiga's hand, and they walked him into the tunnel and down the stairs. The concrete doorway slid closed behind them and Ahiga's heart briefly leaped out of his chest before he saw the glowing directions on the wall urging them to walk deeper into the interior and watch their step.

He turned to Yekaterina. "You can let go of my hand now."

"Oh yeah, sorry I forgot." She blushed as she pulled her hand into her pocket.

Ahiga began to hear a rhythmic thumping coming from below. His curiosity peaked, he listened intently as the thumping became louder and he began to hear, and smell, a large number of people below. Sweat pooled on his forehead and the back of his neck as the thumping grew louder and louder and the voices of the people became a background noise rather than a whisper.

The pheromones he was picking up suggested anxiety, fear, arousal, excitement, and myriad other emotions that seemed nonsensical grouped together. Finally, the stairway sharply turned and and ended at a tunnel that was level and pointed straight forwards. He noticed a purple light at the end and saw humanoid silhouettes moving against the light in a separate tunnel that theirs seemed to merge into.

He turned towards Yekaterina, "want to take the plunge?"

She nodded, "fuck it, let's go in."

They moved down the tunnel and soon faced the edge of a milling crowd moving inexorably towards some destination. People conversed, some had peeled off into the mouth of the tunnel they were exiting to smoke drugs or make out with partners. Ahiga nearly tripped over the leg of a slim Hispanic man passionately entangled with a yellow Sri Jayan of indeterminate gender.

He reached out his hand to Yekaterina as they reached the edge of the moving crowd. "So we don't get separated." He explained.

"Right," she replied grasping his hand as they joined the avalanche of people.

He jostled elbows with a blonde, white woman with dreads, bumped into a pale-skinned, orange-eyed night kin man who briefly barred his fangs at him, and was nearly tripped by a Hawaiian human woman with large hips. Yekaterina cursed at a large Sri Jayan supermale with large antlers who stepped on her feet with his bare talons without noticing. She was then squished against Ahiga by a short, round, white woman who proceeded to profusely apologize and touch her hair before the current of the crowd pulled them apart.

Ahiga looked up to see the tunnel pouring into what looked like another entrance with words painted above the exit.

PARTY HARDY BROS AND HO'S

Ahiga and Yekaterina were suddenly released from the pressing crowd of the tunnel into a wider space and Ahiga looked around to survey his surroundings. A large, round, antechamber carved into rough, grey stone with a roof around 12 feet in height stretched forward into the distance. Christmas lights were strung across the roof, more art in glowing paint stretched across the roof and walls, and a hundred meters before them there was a raised podium where an albino black man with dreads sat in a DJ chair flanked by huge stereos blasting metallic industrial rap.

"What the shit? It's a party!?" He exclaimed.

"Ah no friggin' way dude this isn't just a party! This is an underground lizard party!" Yekaterina looked down at him and beamed.

"What? I thought those were an urban myth!" Ahiga replied.

"Nah man, they're real, but I've never been to a real one before. Oh shit! That's probably the whole mystery behind this tunnel situation! It's just the lizard party! Man, we should celebrate by getting wrecked!"

Ahiga shook his head. "We need to stay on task and stay professional."

Yekaterina frowned. "Why. Are. You. So. LAME!"

Ahiga narrowed his eyes. "I take my job seriously and have self-respect for myself as a BETSA agent. We are the Bureau of Extraterrestrial and Supernatural Affairs, not the Bureau of Getting Sloshed at Work."

"Uuugh! That sounds like a better bureau! You know you just want to feel like a big serious man who people take seriously. Look Ahiga, I've been there, done that. I tried to be a big, serious man. I got tired of that and now I'm a fun, awesome girl with great hair and it's a vastly superior experience. You know what, think about it this way. If we don't party, we'll be suspicious! We have to party to do our job Ahiga!"

Ahiga thought about it. "You somehow made a valid point but that doesn't mean we can get high or sloshed."

Yekaterina narrowed her eyes at him. "It doesn't mean we can get too high or too sloshed."

Ahiga grumbled, "no more than a little buzzed and a teensy bit high."

Yekaterina considered. "Deal. I guess you aren't a total buzzkill after all Ahiga."

"I fear what that compliment implies about me." He replied.

They walked towards a bar near the edge of the stone antechamber and Ahiga tried to keep his ears peeled for suspicious conversation. He only heard snippets of typical party chatter. He wasn't paying attention to his physical surroundings and walked into an occupied red couch near the bar. A large, green, muscle-bound reptilian wearing nothing but jeans stood up from the couch where he had been canoodling with a tall night kin woman.

"Got a problem little sapien?" The reptilian said through bared, needle-like teeth.

"I just wasn't looking where I was going, I'm not looking for trouble." Ahiga said holding up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Yeah, that's what your kind always say! Then before you know it, you've taken every last grain of sand on the planet for yourselves and forced everyone else to obey your rules like it was your world to begin with!"

Ahiga clenched his fist and thought about how to best take the reptilian down, he didn't want to, but he would if he had to. Suddenly the night kin woman behind them on the couch started laughing and grabbed the reptilian's hand.

"Sit down Req! You're too drunk to fight. You might really hurt the squishy human." She looked at him with eyes as yellow as a cat's set in an angular pale face framed by jet-black hair.

I know her from somewhere. Ahiga thought to himself, but he couldn't put a name to the face no matter how hard he tried however.

"Excuse my idiot friend here sir, listen to him talk and you'd think he was there when humans burned Vel'qaaq'vov five hundred years ago. He just needs to lie down." She stood up and faced the reptilian, Ahiga saw she was just as tall as her male friend and watched as cat-like claws came out from her fingertips as she put her hands on his shoulders. "Isn't that right, Req?"

Req gulped. "Yeah, sorry about that little human." They walked away and as they went Ahiga couldn't shake an uncanny feeling about the encounter.

He finally headed towards the bar as he lost sight of the couple in the crowd. As he reached the bar, he saw Yekaterina was talking with the short, curvy, white woman from earlier and both seemed to be engaged in a competitive blushing contest. Ahiga sat down next to her and summoned the red Sri Jayan barkeeper who wore a long blue kilt and a strip of blue cloth around their chest.

"Two beers please, light beers. For me and my…friend here." The Sri Jayan nodded and tapped their small horns and the lid of their closed third eye in a gesture of respect before heading off.

Ahiga turned towards Yekaterina. "Got a minute…Alice?"

Yekaterina turned towards him, "just a second." She typed something into the short woman's phone and the woman walked off with a giggle before Yekaterina turned back to Ahiga. "What's up dude?"

"Something's fishy about this place Kat. Are you familiar with any famous night kin women who are really tall, have straight black hair, and yellow eyes?"

Yekaterina blinked. "Are you pulling my leg? You're describing," she leaned in to whisper in his ear, "Veronica the Vivisector. High level Guild warrior. She's killed hundreds of BETSA agents!"

"Holy shit we can't let her get away then!" Ahiga jumped out of his chair before Yekaterina grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around, and leaned in to whisper again.

"Are you fucking nuts!? She'd drop you in a heartbeat! You're an Atlas mag who has some freaky anomalous powers you can't control, she's a two-hundred-year-old warrior! You may punch real good and she may not be a mag, but she has a hell of a lot of accumulated knowledge! Not to mention she's a night kin!"

"Ok so we round up everyone!" Ahiga retorted in a whisper.

"Absolutely not! I'm an aeromancer, Liban's a pyromancer, Kobold's an alchemist, Ae-Cha's a psychic, and no one knows what Ricky does! None of us are above a four on the classification scale! She's killed bigger groups of stronger people who had more experience! Fuck man, she was in the Second Great War and fought Von Lichtenstein himself!"

Ahiga looked at the floor and felt a sinking feeling of defeat. "Well then we still need to gather intel about whatever fucked up shit this place is up to."

Yekaterina nodded. "Agreed. We need to get in touch with the other groups."

"What's up bitches?" Ahiga turned to see Ricky approaching the bar with his arm over the shoulder of a female reptilian in a purple crop-top and glowing orange short shorts.

"These your friends Crashy?" She said turning to face Ricky.

"Yeah, babe their cool." Ricky nodded at Yekaterina and Ahiga.

"Ricky, we need to gather up everyone. Now." Ahiga said curtly.

Ricky nodded. "I'll tell Liban and the others. I spotted Kobold around the fight pit and Ae-Cha and Liban were hanging out at the other bars."

"You have a big crew Crashy." The reptilian woman said.

"Yeah, unfortunately this is kind of a private affair you know?"

She nodded, "yeah I'm cool. You have my number if you ever want to get down and scaly again." The reptilian walked away while rocking her hips at Ricky as the man watched her go.

Ricky turned back towards them. "What's going on gang?"

Ahiga leaned in to whisper into his ear. "This place has high level Guild members as guests. I somehow doubt they are totally naïve to who their patrons are, but we can't do anything until we gather solid intel."

"Alright follow me." Ricky said before he turned around and proceeded to zip through the crowd. Ahiga was momentarily surprised at how seriously Ricky seemed to be taking the situation and struggled to keep up with him.

They weaved through crushing crowds of people dancing to the beat of the music. Tables were laid out for people to snort cocaine and jackalope antler off of. Ahiga assumed there had to be some kind of ventilation system for the place to keep everyone from suffocating or choking to death on all the pot smoke in the air. They reached an area circled by a large knot of people who Ricky began pushing aside before seizing a familiar ginger man and forcibly pulling him out of the crowd.

"What the bloody hell Ricky! I have money on Rex the Destroyer crumping Strong Johnny in the fight pit!" Kobold's exclaimed as his face turned red with rage.

"We got important business. We need to link up with the boss man and the others."

Kobold sighed and nodded as they followed Ricky's lead into the depths of the party once more. They passed circles of couches occupied by cuddling couple and throuples, a circle of people around a one-meter-deep pit in the ground watching fire sprites shaped like large beetles battle, and people cheering at what appeared to be an impromptu fight between a large muscular human woman and a small night kin woman.

Ahiga spotted the other bar and looked for Liban or Ae-Cha but failed to spot them. Finally, Yekaterina tapped his shoulder and pointed to Liban who seemed to be in the midst of a conversation with a giggling woman at the bar. Ahiga walked forward despite feeling like he'd just been punched in the gut.

"Liban! We need to talk." Liban turned towards Ahiga with a smile on his face that turned into a frown when he saw Ahiga's facial expression.

"Alright," he turned back towards the brunette with glasses he had been talking to, "sorry Rachel I have to deal with some private business. I hope we can talk again some time." The woman nodded and walked off as Liban got down from his chair and lowered his voice. "What is it? Are they kidnapping people from this place?"

Ahiga shook his head. "We don't know. What we do know is that there are suspicious people here and we need to investigate." Ahiga tried his best to keep his voice flat.

I'm an idiot for being upset. He's my boss, it was stupid to have any feelings about him. He has no obligation to feelings even I'm not sure of. I probably didn't even like him, it was my brain confusing things is all. I was just…impressed with him. I need to keep my head in the game. Ahiga mentally nodded to himself and shoved his feelings of disappointment deep down.

"Alright, I'll get Ae-Cha. She was watching the third bar up near the back of the chamber." Liban took off and everyone else followed as they once again pushed and weaved through the crowd.

"Why do the reptilians throw these parties?" Kobold half-whispered to himself.

"It's a way of mourning to an extent. Back when the reptilians had their own homeland, they held enormous parties each year to honor the God of the Forest Wx'zed. Now they throw these parties outside their homeland on the same date. The underground part is because the Spaniards forced the parties literally underground during the colonial days and the Empire of Brazil and the Gran Colombians weren't much friendlier. And as time went on necessity became tradition." Yekaterina said.

Ahiga couldn't help but catch a hint of sadness in her voice and briefly wondered why. He was soon distracted as he spotted Ae-Cha at the bar looking profoundly uncomfortable while she stared down at her drink.

Ricky walked up to her. "Ae-Cha we need to talk."

She sighed in what sounded like relief. "Thank god. Are we leaving? I didn't want to say it earlier but I'm a bit claustrophobic."

Liban shook his head and gestured for her to follow him and the others towards a stretch of wall with few people lingering around. "Let Ahiga explain." Liban said.

Ahiga spoke up. "Me and Kat are pretty sure Veronica the Vivisector was, or is, here."

Kobold crossed himself. "Christ almighty boy are you trying to give us a heart attack!?" He whisper-yelled.

Liban gestured for Kobold to lower his volume. "How sure about this are you Ahiga."

"Not terribly sure, but the description matched up and the night kin woman I spotted acted very strangely, like she found me suspicious."

Liban shook his head. "That's not good. I think we need to leave and call in to the big bosses. This is all too big for just us."

Everyone else gave some measure of agreement. Ahiga was reluctant. We can't just give up, I'm strong, and together we could probably take down one night kin who isn't even a mag. I mean, come one, she'd have to use spells and artifacts for her magic. Doesn't matter how skilled she is, we have an advantage. Then again…it probably isn't just her. Fuck. We probably do need to retreat.

Ahiga felt bitter as they began to walk away past one of the bars and towards the exit. Suddenly Ahiga felt a tingle up his spine and felt horribly like something was wrong. Ahiga stopped and tapped Liban on the back. Liban turned around and gave him a curious look.

Ahiga lowered his voice. "Something's off. I think we're about to be attacked."

A strange voice from behind suddenly interrupted them. "Ahem! Gentlemen and gentleladies if you would be so kind as to give me a moment of your attention."

Ahiga turned around to face the strange voice. A man in a knee-length trench coat stood behind the group with the reptilian man from earlier standing behind him. The reptilian stared at Ahiga with crossed arms. He began to growl but the stranger held up his hand and gestured for him the stop. The stranger grinned revealing teeth as white as snow, the same color as his neck length hair that contrasted with his tan skin and purple eyes. He was tall, lanky, and seemed to carry himself with utter ease and confidence as he faced the group and took a step towards them.

"Forgive me for the interruption my friends, but my associate here," he gestured to the muscular reptilian, "reported that y'all was actin' mighty suspicious earlier and I'd just like to clear the air. You see this here is an…accepting sort of joint and I am hired to make sure it remains that way and the atmosphere we have established is not sullied by those who would seek to poke the unwanted blood hound nose of the law into our affairs."

Ahiga felt danger waft off the man, at the same time he felt like a sense of ease was trying to crush his alertness like a tidal wave. He averted his gaze from the man's eyes which seemed to want to suck away his suspicion like a vortex.

Ricky laughed and slapped Ahiga and Liban on the back. "There's no problem here man! We're just here for the party, you can ask Te'ret, she's a chick I was hooking up with earlier. Hell, ask about my tall dark and handsome friend here and my tall light and ethereal gal pal over there and you'll hear that both of them were trying to get some action tonight. Our little, short pal here," Ricky patted Ahiga on the back, "is just uptight. He spent a good part of his childhood in protestant foster homes and has some hang ups about having fun is all. He's not a narc though. Trust me, I've seen him lie to the police and help an old man steal shit worth lots of hard cash."

Ahiga blanched. How the fuck does Ricky know about that!?

The stranger grinned. "You may be right my Latin friend." He turned to walk away before stopping and half-turning around, "just one question for you."

"Shit it out already." Ricky beckoned.

"Don't I know you from the news?"

Ahiga's heart stopped, and he began to run down how to disable or kill the stranger in a heartbeat.

"What do all tall, sexy, awesome Hispanic men look the same to you? Don't be a southern stereotype man!"

The stranger chuckled, "perhaps I am mistaken." He turned around again before suddenly stopping yet another time. "One last thing though."

Ricky sighed deeply. "What?"

"I can stand a lot of vices. But I hate liars."

The man stuck his arm out behind him and in less than half-a-second a sword-like blade stretched out and made sickening sound as it passed through Ricky's chest and out his back. The blade snapped back up his sleeve as the man turned around and smiled at the group. Ricky slumped to the floor gushing blood from his heart.

"Now we tango ladies and gentlemen." The stranger said with a grin.

Yekaterina recovered from shock first. "I"LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" She yelled before holding out her hands and blasting the man with a hurricane force wind.

His reptilian ally flew backwards across the floor along with many bottles, tables, chairs, and some other patrons who were already fleeing the scene screaming. The stranger however stood his ground as hooks ejected from his boots and gripped the stone floor.

Liban yelled in rage and shot out a torrent of uncontrolled flame, but the stranger then released his grip on the floor and allowed Yekaterina's wind to carry him ahead of Liban's flame before a hook on a steel cable burst from under his coat and grabbed the ceiling. He swung himself out of the path of Yekterina's wind blast and landed on the ground with an audible grunt of pain.

"Nice try honey, but you'll have to do better than that when fighting Sebastian Blades."

Ahiga screamed in incoherent rage and leaped at the man but was knocked out of his course by the large reptilian. He soon found himself smashed against the ground with the reptilian pinning both his arms down with his clawed fingers that pierced his skin.

"I knew you were suspicious! Who do you work for!? The cops!? BETSA!?" Req yelled at Ahiga who screamed nonsense at the reptilian in response. Ahiga then lifted his legs to grab Req from behind before tossing him across the floor.

The reptile landed on all fours and hissed at Ahiga before running at him on his hands and feet with needle teeth barred.

"Get out of my way!" Ahiga yelled before catching the lizard man across the jaw with a right hook sending him sprawling across the floor separated from several of his teeth.

Ahiga stepped forward to finish the crouching reptilian off before feeling a pain on his stomach and looking down to see five shallow bloody gashes across his abdomen. The reptilian chuckled as he picked himself up off the floor and wiped blood from his mouth.

"You think I'm a lightweight little man? I may not be on Blades's level, but I've been fighting humans since before the Spaniards reached the Americas."

Ahiga growled and jumped at the other man only to be grabbed around the ankle by Req's tail and smashed against the floor. Ahiga felt one of his ribs crack and his vision went blurry for a second as his mouth filled with blood form his teeth cutting the inside of his cheek. The hulking reptile stood up and grabbed a glass bottle of the floor that he smashed across the left side of Ahiga's face while he struggled to get up. Ahiga looked back up at Req with a look of pure malice that made the reptilian briefly recoil as Ahiga pounced forward once more. Ahiga delivered an upward punch to the other man's stomach lifting his entire body into the air and tossing him over a dozen feet upwards where his scaly back impacted against the roof before he fell back to the ground.

"Fuck!" Req spat out along with a wad of congealed blood and spit as he lifted himself from the ground.

Ahiga kicked him hard across the face sending him sprawling to the side again. Req reached out and grabbed a chair that he threw at Ahiga who smashed it into splinters with a punch hard enough to bloody his own knuckles. The reptilian got to his feet and put his fist in front of him before lunging at Ahiga with a flurry of punches and slashes from his claws.

They traded rapid strikes with Ahiga pelting Req's ribs repeatedly and blocking dozens of strikes only to still find his shoulders and arms covered with shallow cuts from Req's razor-sharp claws. The lizard man delivered a scratch across Ahiga's jaw, Ahiga punched him hard enough in the side to crack a rib, Ahiga's nose was bloodied, Req's right eye was blacked, Ahiga got cut across the side of his left cheek, finally Ahiga delivered a mighty strike against the center of his opponent's chest. Req was knocked back and fell to the ground clutching his chest and gasping for breath.

Ahiga lifted his hand prepared to deliver the strongest strike he could, but the reptilian looked up at him and Ahiga saw something…familiar in his eyes. Sorrow. Helplessness. A profound sense of loss. He felt unable to strike the man, but as he saw Req's muscles clench for a strike to take advantage of his hesitation, he struck him across the head. He softened his blow causing the reptilian to crumple to the ground unconscious, but alive.

Ahiga turned around to look at the fight between Blades and the others and study his other enemies' moves.

He saw Blades's trench coat in burnt tatters clinging to his body and revealing a vest covered in various bladed weapons underneath. Blades had a large sawblade strapped to his left arm and a sword blade attached to his right arm and used his sawblade to block a fireball from Liban and his arm-sword to block a chair telekinetically thrown by Ae-Cha. Ahiga saw Ae-Cha, Kobold, and Liban all had cuts on their bodies of varying severity. Liban looked the worse with a deep cut above his right eye obscuring his vision with a torrent of blood and the pinky finger of his left hand having been severed and the wound self-cauterized.

Ae-Cha sent a storm of debris at the man, he deftly dodged and diced tables, chairs, and various bottles but was caught with several blows when Ae-Cha suddenly reversed the flow of the storm catching him in the back with a chair hard enough to smash the bar stool and striking him on the back of the head with a bottle and a loose rock hard enough to smash a normal human's skull. Ae-Cha tried raising Blades into the air, but his boots gripped the ground once more and he let out a chuckle.

"Seems like the small ones in your posse have the most bite. Unfortunately for y'all Blades always hits his mark." His left eye then unfolded revealing mechanical parts underneath as a tube projected from what had been his pupil before firing a single dart at Ae-Cha.

Ae-Cha pinned the dart to the floor, but Blades used the moment of distraction to release himself from the ground and leap out of the path of a man-sized tornado of fire Liban sent spiraling his way. The tornado burned his right shoulder eliciting a grunt of pain from Blades and Ahiga took the opportunity to attack, jumping at the man and hoping to catch him in midair.

Blades's reaction time was too fast and Ahiga was sent flying away from him by a strong punch to his jaw. He smashed through a circle of couches sending furniture flying in every direction and sliding across the rough stone floor corroding the skin on his back. Ahiga wasted no time as he stood up even in dire pain and struggled to catch his breath.

He looked up to see Kobold turning a ninja star tossed his way into mercury and Yekaterina trying a new tactic as she pulled the air from Blades's lungs causing the man to crumple to the ground.

"I'm going to kill you for what you did to Ricky you monster!" Yekaterina screamed as she tugged harder at the air causing Blades's face to become purple and swollen.

Blades still managed a grin as his hook flew out from his shirt once more, this time aimed at Yekaterina to force her to divert her focus. Ae-Cha interrupted his plan as she sent the hook flying into the ceiling with a tug of psychic force allowing Yekaterina to continue suffocating Blades. As Ae-Cha's attention was diverted the eye needle lifted off the ground and struck the psionic woman in the knee. Ae-Cha rapidly seized up and crumpled to the ground as her muscles all tensed at once. Yekaterina dropped her focus from Blades who inhaled deeply as Yekaterina ran to Ae-Cha's side in a state of shock.

"You should be honored little lady." Blades said as he casually dodged a spout of flame from Liban and jumped over a crack in the earth sent his way by Kobold, "I only use my special eye when I feel threatened. That paralytic ain't cheap."

Liban roared in rage. "I'm going to burn that grin off your face!"

He sent forth another, larger, wave of fire and Blades was engulfed from the front as he held up his hands and the flames covered him totally. Liban yelled in fury and only ceased the unending wave after several seconds as he grew obviously exhausted.

The retreat of the flame revealed a dome of blades where Blades had been standing. As they dispersed, he stood up from underneath them with singes on his hair and a look of annoyance on his face.

"You lack finesse my friend. Of all your comrades you have the least creativity."

He then tossed his sawblade at Liban, it spun through the air at him in a blur. Liban summoned the strength to knock it off course with an arrow of flame, but it flew back through the air at an angle as it reoriented to strike at Liban once more. Kobold leapt forth and smacked the blade turning it into a cloud of dust before he fell to the ground in exhaustion.

Blades's frown deepened. "I hate to win through attrition, but it looks like that's the way it's going to-" Ahiga threw himself into Blades from behind as the man monologued and pinned him against the floor.

"STOP TALKING!" Ahiga screamed as he turned Blades over on his face and saw the man smiling. Ahiga yelled in a rapturous anger as he began to beat Blades across the face repeatedly.

Ahiga punched with all his might over and over, back and forth. He sent a tooth flying from Blades's head. He felt a cheekbone crack, saw the man's flesh eye turn pink with blood. Ahiga grew impatient and grabbed a loose rock off the floor before beginning to strike Blades on the forehead with it. He split his skin and broke the stone in half, but his adversary's skull didn't yield, and his smile didn't fade.

"Heh," Blades said through bloodied teeth. "You have to do better than that kid." Ahiga felt something sharp enter his back and slid off Blades in shock.

Blades got up and stood over him as Ahiga touched the long, wide, double-edged knife blade in his back and noticed the sword on Blades's arm missing. It came back out of Ahiga's back with a wet sucking sound and flew through the air before landing back under Blades's sleeve and locking into place with a click.

"Huh. You got tough meat kid. I expected that blade to enter your lungs." Blades spoke as he deftly dodged another squirt of flame from Liban. He looked back at Liban with an annoyed look on his face, "I'm more interested in the boy than you."

He kicked Ahiga across the head to keep him down and sent his hook flying at Liban who stood with a defiant look on his face as the weapon cut through the air spiraling towards his chest. The hook was sent off course by an intense blast wind and Yekaterina stood up from crouching next to Ae-Cha to stare at Blades with utter hate and tears in her eyes. Ahiga turned around on his back and noticed Ae-Cha still breathing. He felt a tingling at the back of his skull.

Ahiga, this is Ae-Cha. You are the last person who can stop Blades. The others are out of energy, I can feel it. They can barely stand. I'm spending all my energy pumping my heart and lungs with telekinesis while Blades's poison paralyses my muscles. I know how much energy you have; you can muster one shot with green lightning. Please don't miss.

Ahiga felt the mental connection trickle off and looked up at Blades who turned his gaze back down on him and raised his arm-sword.

"You all were on the wrong side this whole time you know that? You serve the baseline humans like a dog because you don't want them to fear you, I let them be afraid. Three days of rampage twenty years ago weren't nearly enough to pay them back for everything they've done to our people. It's honestly a shame you couldn't have joined the Guild, you would have done great there."

A chair leg bounced off Blades's head and was followed by a gust of wind. The man looked up at Yekaterina and Liban with a confused look on his face. "I won't enjoy killing the rest of y'all, but I do respect the tenacity." He turned his attention back to Ahiga and raised his arm-sword higher.

Ahiga moved his right hand into the shape of a pistol and fired.

A beam of green energy shot out and smashed into the ceiling burning a hole deep into the solid rock above. The earth shook and a smell of ozone permeated the room as the intensity of the green light blinded Ahiga for several seconds.

As Ahiga's eyes cleared, he looked up to see Blades still standing to the right of his former position.

Blades looked down and saw his left arm cut off at the elbow and smoking. Wires fell out from the stub and the skin around his elbow melted and dribbled to the floor with a smell of burnt plastic.

"Huh, didn't quite dodge that quick enough. Oh well, I can always get another. Let's see if you can do the same for your head shall we?"

He raised his arm-sword once more. Ahiga felt numb and drained. Helpless.

Fuck I'm out of it. He thought as time seemed to slow while Blades brought his arm-sword down. I can't make a shield, I'm too weak. Oh gods, is this how I die? I never even got to be a hero…

Several gun shots rang out through the antechamber and blood and bits of flesh flew off Blades's skull.

As he fell to the ground the swipe of his blade missed Ahiga's head by a hairsbreadth and Blades's face was in a state of utter shock as his pupils dilated to consume his eyes. He landed with a thud and blood pooled around his head while his arms and legs slowly contracted and retracted scraping the stone floor with their attached blades. Ahiga stared in shock at his suddenly fallen foe as his eyes flickered shut. Finally, Ahiga managed to wrench his attention from Blades to the direction of the gunshots.

Ricky stood holding a smoking revolver in his hand. There was a hole in his suit over his heart and massive amount of blood soaking his chest, abdomen, back, and neck. The wound over his heart was healed shut.

Ricky walked over towards Ae-Cha and lifted the woman over his shoulder before turning his head to look at each of the others in turn.

"Now you know what Ricky does motherfuckers."