Anad’s sword trailed silver streamers as it snapped out to parry a spike of ice the length of his forearm that zipped down the narrow hallway. Another step forward, another ice-spike parried aside.
The sorcerer at the far end of the hall, hands cupped together in front of him and chaos butterflies swirling around, scowled as another projectile formed between his fingers. A dangerous ability against an average solder, but straightforward and easy to predict. And, Anad was anything but average.
He casually took his next step forward, sword parrying the incoming bolt without much thought while considering the rest of his surroundings. Old stonework, probably from the early years of Bastion, or maybe even before. Was Bastion built on top of a pre-existing city? Or maybe so much of it was damaged during the Escalation War, they just decided to build right over the ruins, using the old construction for sewers, and start fresh?
Step. Parry.
Either way, it was obvious the Tinks had been there for a while. One room on his right showed a comfortable living space at a quick glance. Small paintings adorned the wall above a cot with thick blankets, and dishes with half-eaten food sat on a table with two chairs. Everything had a worn but not worn-down feeling to it. Like it had been used for a while, but not fished out of the garbage. Whoever called that room home had done so for several years.
Step. Parry.
Small lanterns that produced no smoke hung from the walls, the faintest touch of chaos energy swirling around them, and covered everything in a warm yellow light. They didn’t flicker like a normal torch; the light was too even and consistent, so they couldn’t be flame. A lost technology? Some small part of Anad wanted to pop the top off one and see how it worked. Flameless torches could serve so many uses in places like…
No. No, stop. That’s the risk. That’s what makes these Tinks so dangerous. These devices use chaos energy. What may seem useful would only lead to the end of the world, like they almost did before. Still, they’re so small… how dangerous could it be?
Step. Parry, and Anad glanced again at his sorcerous ‘opponent’. The man wasn’t ready to deal with a Mediator. Not even close. He should’ve run the first time Anad had slapped aside his magic like an insignificant insect. But, no. No, he continued to stay and try to delay Anad. Buying time for his Tink friends to run away. To hide.
And Anad let him.
Step. Parry.
Yes, this sorcerer would have to die, his magic was mildly dangerous, but the normal Tinks? Without their enclave, they’d have no safe place to practice their dangerous hobbies. They’d have to go live normal lives, away from the technology literally lining the halls here. They didn’t need to die.
Step. Parry.
Anad glanced back the way he’d come, checking for any of the other Mediators that had entered the enclave with him and Gevar. Clear so far. Gevar had sent for more reinforcements after Anad had found the secret entrance in the building where they’d seen the Whistler enter. The door, just like the hidden one in the mountain enclave vault, would’ve gone completely unnoticed… if Anad hadn’t found it.
Apparently, the other Mediators had never seen a mechanism like it, and it was just dumb luck Anad had known to look for it. Dumb luck… that had already led to more bloodshed.
Step. Parry.
The first people they’d found down the stairs through the secret door had tried to fight back. Tried. Failed miserably. Gevar and the other Mediators had shown no mercy. Sorcerer and Tink alike had fallen to their blades. But, even with Gevar’s personal unit accompanying them, they’d immediately found themselves staring at multiple tunnels. Too many to handle, and probably a warren of passages, dead-ends and roundabouts, likely criss-crossing the entire city.
Tunnels they never would’ve found if Anad had kept his mouth shut.
Step. Parry.
His eyes went to the flameless lanterns on the wall again. Were things like that really so dangerous that everybody in the enclave needed to be killed? The question bouncing around his head was likely just as perilous around his fellow Mediators, so Anad had happily split up from the others at the first chance.
‘Go, scour the tunnels. Wipe out the sorcerers,’ Gevar had said.
She didn’t say anything about the Tinks.
Step. Parry.
The sorcerer at the end of the hall, not so far now – Anad could be to him, through him, in a heartbeat if he wanted – finally seemed to realize he couldn’t win the fight. At least not with how he was playing it. His left foot slid back on the stone floor, surprisingly free of dust – They keep this place clean. – and he spread his cupped hands further apart.
Left hand down by his waist, palm up, and his right hand at shoulder height, palm down, the sorcerer clenched his mouth as chaos butterflies flowed into the space between. Swirling around like they were caught in a whirlpool, those butterflies began to freeze, one by one, to become a kind of hanging tapestry that served as the core of a newly forming ice-spike the size of a person.
“Well then,” Anad said, pulling on the Trance himself. Luckily, the after-effects of overusing it in the forest were mostly gone, but he was careful to not take in more than he needed. The world slowed around him, the butterflies going from flapping to paused after several blinks, and Anad pushed forward.
To the sorcerer, it must’ve appeared that Anad simply vanished, though the trailing silver streamers from his sword and eyes would’ve been the only warning.
But, then the sorcerer was dead, and Anad withdrew his sword from the man’s heart, carefully lowering the body to the ground.
Blood pooled underneath from the wound, but none of it stuck to Anad’s sword, and he turned to continue down the hall. That was the third sorcerer he’d killed since entering the tunnels.
And the third time he’d felt… guilty.
Why? What they’re doing is wrong. They put the whole world at risk. And he attacked me. Why should I feel guilty for doing the right thing?
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“Come on Hule, that’s enough, we can…” a voice shouted, quickly followed by a man rounding the corner ahead of Anad. Tink, from the outfit and predictable tool belt strapped over his shoulder and around his waist. The man skidded a little as he tried to stop his momentum, but his eyes settled on the dead sorcerer on the ground, and then scrolled up to take in Anad.
To the Tink, Anad must’ve looked like some kind of nightmare. Tuxedo a crisp black and white, eyes trailing silver lines of light like smoke under the top hat, and the sword – the horrible sword – with matching silver streamers of light rising into the air, like paint running up a wall.
“Hu… Hu… Hule…?” the Tink asked as he stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet, and landing hard on his ass.
“If you mean the ice sorcerer,” Anad said, not moving towards the terrified Tink, but instead pointing at the body at his feet. “He’s dead.”
“No… Hule… Hule, say something,” the Tink said, scrambling onto his hands and knees, and reaching out towards the fallen sorcerer, though he didn’t move any closer. Tears leaked from his eyes, and he muttered the man’s name again. “Hule…”
“I made it… it… it was painless,” Anad said, something about the absolute loss on the man’s face making the words sound all the more hollow. And something about that sparked an anger in his chest.
I’m not the bad guy here. They are. He has to know that. They all have to know that. I wouldn’t be here… this Hule wouldn’t be dead if they didn’t…
“Monster,” the Tink said, lifting his face to look directly at Anad. “You’re a monster. All of you Tailcoats. Monsters!”
“We’re the monsters?!” Anad snapped right back defensively, and cut his sword out to the side, the silver arc slicing through the flameless torch and plunging his small section of the hall into darkness. “You’re the ones playing with chaos. With the technology that almost destroyed the world. We’re just trying to protect the people.”
“We are the people!” the Tink shot back. “Don’t you get it? We’re all people. Under that tuxedo… you were a person once too. But you’re here killing us when we should be working together against the real threat!”
“The real threat?” Anad asked, his sudden outburst of anger cooling as the image of the eye beyond the portal flashed in his memory. “What are you talking about?”
“Why even ask? Not like you’ll listen. You’re here to kill everybody. Just like Hule,” the Tink said, his eyes going back to Hule’s corpse. “All you know how to do is kill.”
“That’s not true,” Anad said, taking a step forward, and the Tink fell over himself to scramble backwards. “We’re… protectors. We protect the world from the dangerous… technology…” he trailed off, glancing at the flameless lantern further down the hall from where he stood in the darkness.
“Protectors? I… I don’t know who’s the bigger fool. Me for trying to talk to you? Or you for believing your own lies?” the Tink said, having pushed himself all the way against the wall. “Well, whatever,” he breathed out, looking at the corpse again. “Just get it over with. Kill me too.”
“I’m not… just tell me about this real threat,” Anad said, but cut off as something shot out of the side hallway, ricocheting mid-air, and raced straight for Anad.
Even to his Trance-enhanced eyes, the small object – a metal fist with a trailing chain – moved lightning fast, and only carefully honed instincts brought his sword up to parry.
CLANG/WHOMP, the air exploded with a concussive blast where the weapons met, cracking the stone in a sphere around Anad and throwing him back while the fist and chain simply vanished.
His hard-soled shoes skidded on the floor, the magic of the tuxedo protecting him from the brunt of the assault, and he retook a defensive posture with his sword angled across his body, but didn’t advance. He knew that weapon, which meant he likely who knew who was behind it.
One of two people I didn’t want to find here. And if she’s here, that means Tel is too.
“Should’ve known it’d be you,” Shara said as she rounded the corner, chaos butterflies swirling around her, and the magic weapon in her right hand dangling the metal fist on a foot of chain. With her left hand, she grabbed the Tink by the toolbelt around his shoulder and lifted him to his feet. “Get out of here.”
“You… you can’t…” the man said, but Shara shoved him down the hall and out of sight.
“We’ll see about that,” she said to the Tink, but then turned her full attention back on Anad. With a flick of her wrist, she set the chain weapon spinning, but didn’t immediately attack. “Did you follow us here?”
“No,” Anad said. “It’s just luck.” Bad luck.
“Just luck, huh?” Shara said, but a brief look of relief crossed her face. Ah, she thought it was her fault we found the enclave.
“Is Tel here?” Anad asked, one eye on the spinning weapon. Even though his tuxedo had absorbed most of the force, that hadn’t been a direct hit, and he’d seen how effective it had been against the forest monsters.
“Why should I answer your questions?” Shara said, gesturing to the body on the floor behind Anad.
“Because you poisoned me and left me for dead in the woods?” Anad shot right back.
“I didn’t poison you,” Shara said. “Maybe I drugged you, but that’s totally different. Besides, I knew you’d survive. There weren’t any of those things around. If I’d wanted you dead, you would be. And, I’m kind of regretting the choice I made,” she said, a second look at the corpse.
“What they’re doing here is dangerous, Shara.”
“What they’re doing...?” she said, shaking her head. “Tell me you’re not that stupid. Think about it. What was keeping that portal in the woods closed? A clock. Who do you think is maintaining those things? Tailcoats? Hah! Don’t make me laugh… though I guess I already did.”
“You’re saying there are more of those portals,” Anad said. It wasn’t a question. “And you’re trying to get me to believe these Tinks are the ones responsible for keeping them closed.”
“Look at you. Catching on. Maybe you’ve got more on your shoulders than a hat-rack,” she said, holding her ground at the intersection.
Like the dead sorcerer, she was buying time for the others to escape. But…
“Say I believe you,” Anad said. “What does that mean? What do you expect me to do?”
“Leave? Take your Tailcoat friends and pretend you didn’t find us. Or at least go for a couple drinks before you come back,” Shara said.
“I can’t do that,” Anad said. Even if he was willing to consider the option, the other Mediators wouldn’t. Gevar wouldn’t. This was the woman’s chance at impressing Sir Junithar and making a name for herself. She wouldn’t give it up so quickly – or at all, really.
“Then why did you even ask?” Shara said. “I thought maybe we could work together, like we did in the forest, but… looking at what you’ve done here, I guess that’s not an option. You’re just like the other Tailcoats.”
“I’m not…”
“You are. Even if the blood doesn’t stick to your suit, you’re covered in it.”
“He attacked me,” Anad said.
“So did I. You going to do the same thing to me?”
“I’m going to do what I have to,” Anad said, clenching his teeth while he pulled on the Trance and tightened his grip on his sword. Her posture had changed, albeit slightly – she was getting ready to act.
Would she run or would she fight?
If she runs, do I chase? If she fights, do I kill her?
Before he had an answer to either of those questions, Shara snapped her wrist out, the chain-linked fist shooting forward. It didn’t come straight at him, instead angling… down?
A bad throw?
No, the fist deflected off something before it hit the floor, shooting off at an entirely different angle towards the ceiling and speeding up. Inches before hit the stone, it again ricocheted off, speeding up even more, but this time careening off to the side. Another deflection and its speed was enough Anad needed to pull harder on the Trance to keep his eyes on it, the chain rattling as it criss-crossed the hallway.
Deflect. Ricochet. Ricochet, Anad kept following the path of the fist until it hit once more off the wall, a web of chains behind it, to jerk for his face. She’s not pulling any punches. Still, Anad’s sword came out and across to slap the fist aside while he prepared to weather the concussive blast then lunge down the hall the second the chains vanished.
Except neither of those things happened.
The metal fist snaked up and away from his parry without bursting, but instead of disappearing like last time, it bounced almost immediately up, over, down, and then straight at his crotch.
Silver streamers trailed his sword as he chopped down in an instinctive panic, repelling the fist before it hit home, only to have it rebound back and forth off the walls to his left and right at lightning speed. He followed the fist with his sword, his plan to charge down the hall completely subdued by the unpredictable weapon, and parried aside an attack aimed for his left knee.
Another bounce, another parry, and the fist was suddenly behind him, leaping from wall to wall to trap him within the web of hanging chains.