by Mathy, Scott
She held out a hand to stay him, “Mr. Knolls, the Arbiter insists that you remain here. We will handle the Dark Ones.”
Down the hall, Dwight could see a group of students sprinting through the connecting corridor. As soon as they passed, one of the hunting cries rang out. Close behind, a blur of black wings and spiked chitin launched after them. Huea’s attention drawn away, Dwight ducked around her outstretched arm and tore after them.
She called from behind, attempting to keep pace, “Stop! It is not safe!”
Rounding the corner, Dwight saw the marks of the creature’s pursuit: immense gashes in the wooden floors. He could hear each slam and grunt of the monster’s gait. The labyrinthine maze of the Enclave’s dormitories took Dwight down hall after hall, following the damage and reverberating crashes. Finally, the sounds stopped, replaced by a chorus of frightened cries.
Swinging around the final bend, Dwight saw the crowd of students cornered by the winged monster. Between the hitman and the demon, the scattered remains of a clockwork knight lay across the wooden floor, its burnished steel ripped to pieces by the thing’s inhuman hands. The students pressed themselves against the wood-paneled corner of the dead end. The creature slowly inched toward them, savoring their terror.
Dwight sparked the pads of his artificial hand, “Well, aren’t you an ugly one.” The lightning danced between his knuckles, casting an electric glow around the narrow passage.
The beast turned its long head, revealing a slobbering maw of three-inch fangs. On the side of its face, a trio of dark eyes trained themselves on the advancing hitman. The thing rotated fully toward Dwight, who now stood a few feet from its hulking mass. At the end of its thick limbs, massive talons dug into the boards beneath its feet. Behind it, the students huddled together.
Seizing the initiative, Dwight rushed the demon. It raised one claw up high over its head, expecting to catch the sprinting human across the neck. However, Dwight slid low, passing under its swipe and bringing one electrified punch directly between its bent legs. The pads discharged brilliantly, filling the hall with explosive light and the smell of burnt ozone.
Dwight smirked up at the surprised creature, “Learned that one from an old partner.” He pulled back his arm, preparing to watch the monster drop.
Instead, the demon reared up higher, bringing its blackened wings out to fill the passage. The look of surprise was instantly replaced with a monstrous roar inches from Dwight’s face. Droplets of spittle splattered against his flesh. The fearful young mages winced at the horrific noise.
Dwight looked into the berserker’s huge, glowing eyes. “Fuck…that usually works better.” Confident that he had the beast’s full attention, he took off running away from the cowering students. After a few seconds, the crashing footsteps behind him indicated that the demon was gaining quickly.
Circling back toward his room, he spotted Huea searching the halls for her wayward charge. Upon spotting Dwight running toward her, the master circled her hands, preparing an incantation that Dwight felt was coming for him. An instant later, the demon also rounded the corner in pursuit.
Huea released her spell, the arcane energies dispersing from her hands just before they completed.
“Help!” Dwight shouted as he ran toward her.
Huea snapped out of her befuddlement, preparing another incantation. Her arms burst into blue flames running the length of her robes before the light overtook her entire body. “Duck!” the flaming woman yelled back as she sprinted toward them.
Dwight leapt for the ground just as Huea dove over him. Her flame-engulfed body slammed into the raging demon, stopping its charge full force and sending it flying backward into the adjacent wall. Huea stood where they collided, unshaken by the impact. The flames dissolved as quickly as they had formed.
Rising to his feet, Dwight observed the huge creature wearily attempting to stand. The master mage approached it without fear. He stepped over to join her. Before it was up again, Huea made a series of gestures with her hands, summoning a blazing circle beneath the creature. Chains of fire leapt from the circle, surrounding its limbs and holding it fast to the ground.
“Thanks,” Dwight said, taking a position behind the concentrating mage.
Huea completed her incantation, the chains dragging the demon into the floor as it roared in protest. As its tallest horn disappeared into the wooden boards, the circle flickered out of existence, leaving a faint outline of ashes where it had been.
She turned to face Dwight, quietly judging him. “You should not have run,” she said plainly.
Dwight pointed down the hall, “There were students in danger, and your robot guards are useless. I had to help.”
She scowled at her charge, “Their safety is their own responsibility. Yours is mine. Our clockworks are only to protect us from the most trivial threats and to manage the children. The Arbiter said to keep you safe. She has never brought an army so large, but he is confident that we will triumph.”
“There are more of those things?” Dwight was already looking for the path that would bring him back to his room. Huea followed closely behind.
“She has the power of the Dark Lands behind her, but we have the Grand Arbiter,” Huea said confidently.
They found the open door to Dwight’s suite. She watched him enter and begin throwing blankets from underneath his cot. “Sure, and who’s ‘she?’”
Huea’s tone turned bitter, “Koshi, the fallen. She who abandoned the Master’s teaching. She who commands the Darkness.” The last word came as if spat upon the floor.
Dwight located what he was searching for. Uncovering the olive briefcase from the blankets, he returned to the door, sliding gracefully past Huea’s attempt to block his path. “She sounds lovely. I’m guessing she’ll be this way?”
The sounds of battle led Dwight back through the winding paths to the front doors of the dormitories. Dwight carefully weaved his way around a handful of mages battling. The only distinction between the warriors defending their sacred academy and the aggressors was their uniforms: the orange monastic robes of the school against the dark battle leathers of their rivals. Neither side seemed to have a notable advantage. Had it not been for the demon’s earlier rampage, Dwight could have mistaken the commotion for a training exercise.
Arcane sparks rained over Dwight as he ducked under a student’s shield construct. The hitman looked up into the eyes of the attacker as the man’s summoned blade struck the shield. The darkly clad mage couldn’t have been out of his teens, yet the homicidal rage poured from his eyes as a cloud of red smoke.
Dwight swung his briefcase from beneath his cover, catching the invader in the abdomen. The surprise stole the air from his lungs and stopped the attacker in mid-swing. Releasing his spell, the Enclave student stepped back, freeing Dwight to stand. As he rose, he took the advantage, delivering a single uppercut with his metal fist to the young man’s chin. The invader fell backward, the haze surrounding his eyes fading as they closed.
Brushing the embers from his jacket, Dwight turned to the dumbstruck student beside him. “No spells required; never be afraid to just hit someone.”
The student opened his mouth to reply, but seemed incapable of putting a response together. Dwight stared awkwardly at the young man for several seconds before patting him on his shaved head, making a poor attempt to not smudge the ritualistic patterns painted there.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get there,” he said, turning for the door. Examining his hand, he disapprovingly grimaced at the black ink covering his fingers. As he passed through the open doorway, he wiped them across the wooden surface, leaving a thick streak.
Outside, a cacophony of multicolored explosions erupted around the compound. Every section of the training yards was filled with the sounds of magical combat and inhuman roars. Huea caught up with Dwight as he descended the stairs leading to the stone path he had walked with the Arbiter earlier that day.
“Mr. Knolls!” she shouted after him.
Dwight paused, allowing her to race down the steps, “I’m a little busy.”
The master attempted to stand in his way again, “You will return to your room at once! She is too powerful for a helpless vagabond with no magic talent to face. She. Will. Destroy. You.” A blast of blood-red lightning ripped through the adjacent courtyard.
“Is that how you people think of me? Helpless?” Even in the chilly air, Dwight could feel his temperature finally rising for the first time that day. He pushed past her, tapping the safety release on his case. The outer shell unfolded and transformed, the launcher extending from the briefcase. Much lighter than its original form, Dwight carried the weapon in his single organic hand by its top-mounted handle.
As he angrily stomped off down the path, he stepped between two senior mages dueling, oblivious to the outsider or his escort. Without missing a step, he grabbed the dark-clothed one by his ponytail, and dragged the magic-user along with him as he kept walking. The other mage stopped, staring in awe at his opponent flailing impotently in their guest’s grasp. Huea hurried to keep up.
Reaching the wooden arch that connected the two yards, Dwight tossed the struggling invader in front of him. The acolyte slammed into the gigantic door’s wooden frame, momentarily stunned. Dwight then rotated his grip to the rear of the launcher, bringing it up like a bat between his two hands. Swinging as hard as he could, the barrel of the weapon caught the mage squarely in the jaw. A thick trail of blood, teeth, and saliva spewed across the loose stone garden as the magic-user’s body tumbled after it.
Dwight spun around suddenly, letting the launcher hang in his dominant hand. Huea stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes locked with Dwight’s manic stare, “Does that look goddamned helpless to you!?” he shouted.
Huea met his gaze without answering. Instead, she looked beyond him to the next training yard and took position behind the pillar Dwight had thrown the fallen mage against. Dwight matched her approach, assessing the situation.
Scattered around the adept’s training grounds, a dozen or so of the Enclave’s mages lay unconscious from their battles with the dark invaders. Several of the hulking demons stood watch over the prone forms, the semi-visible tethers of control binding them to the summoners who had brought them into the physical world. More mountains of broken clockwork guardians lay strewn about. At the center of the courtyard, the Arbiter knelt, chained to the ground by whips of black magic. A strangely-dressed woman stood over him, her armor a twisted mishmash of jagged spikes and fetish gear. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back. A red glow radiated from her eyes through the rims of her facemask.
“Either that’s Koshi, or it’s his birthday and no one told me,” Dwight whispered.
Huea glanced back, a look of disgust on her face, “Really?”
Dwight took a step back, playing with the settings on Ivan. “What? Exposed midriff, battle heels, no protection on thighs or forearms. Shit, I always thought I was underprepared. You mages give a new damned definition to ‘combat ready.’” He had stopped caring about his volume, “I thought the Capes were bad, but this is something else. At least Linda only got a tit-window when they redesigned her outfit.” He slammed his robotic hand against the side of his weapon.
The gathered throng of corrupted mages turned their attention to the increasingly loud conversation happening just beyond the courtyard; even the Arbiter, pinned down as he was, found the energy to look at Dwight’s verbal tirade.
“Who dares!?” the woman yelled across the distance. She flung her hands to the side, trailing arcs of crimson lightning into the rocks surrounding her. Her horde stepped forward to confront their next victims.
Huea turned to Dwight, “Do you see what you have done? We will be flayed alive for this!” She seemed unsure of whether to raise her spells or start running.
Dwight stepped out from behind their cover, swinging the launcher to his shoulder. “Dwight Knolls, professional normal jackass! Master of several party tricks, tamer of at least one small dog!” the hitman shouted back, “I’m here for the other-me you have there!”
Koshi levitated from the ground, dark magical wings lifting her mostly-bare body several feet over the Arbiter before stopping. “I will tear this one’s soul from his body and consume it myself, then my minions will feast on the rest of this Enclave! All will be ashes and blo-”
Ivan fired an instantaneous beam of blue light a hundred feet through Koshi’s exposed midsection, blasting a six-inch hole straight through the woman’s torso before she could react. The shocked look on the evil mage’s face followed her as she sagged to the stone circle in front of the Arbiter.
Dwight rolled the steaming weapon from his shoulder, “Okay, Stripper-Merlin.” He tried blowing on the super-heated barrel.
The red glow faded from the dark witch’s eyes as the life left them. The bound demons zapped out of existence in tiny pops of black smoke. Her disciples turned to flee as their powers drained away. The Arbiter shook loose his bonds. Huea stared at Dwight, mouth agape, her robes fluttering in the commotion of the defeated mages running past her.
Dwight approached the still-kneeling Arbiter. With a press of button, he switched Ivan back to its briefcase form and pulled an electrical plug from its base. “I don’t assume you guys have outlets? This thing takes, like, six hours to charge.” He cautiously nudged Koshi’s body with his shoe.
“What have you done?” the Arbiter asked quietly.
It took Dwight a moment to process the question, “Saved you, your school. Prevented quite a few future headaches, I’d imagine. Take your pick.”
The Arbiter sprung to his feet, “You murdered her!” he screamed in Dwight’s face.
Dwight took a step back, appalled at the Arbiter’s fury, “You heard her: she was going to butcher you! I saved you all!”
“We do not kill our enemies, Knolls! That is what separates us from them!” The Arbiter reached down to close his adversary’s lifeless eyes, “She could have been redeemed.”
Dwight scoffed, “Really!? Because it sounded like she wanted to eat your face as a starter. I don’t think you come back from Evil Bondage Face-Eater.”
The Arbiter held a quaking finger to Dwight, “Then we would have kept trying, as many times as it took! We are not simple-minded savages like you!”
“Not everyone can be saved, your mystic-ness! Some of us can’t just solve everything with bullshit magic that protects everyone. We act, or people – innocent people – die!” He was shaking, the adrenaline overtaking his senses.
“Then they die as they were meant to! But we are better than that! We are not murderers.”
By now, the downed Enclave students were stirring; some had already risen to their feet and joined their leader. Huea approached from behind, her eyes focused on the subtlety-smoking corpse of their greatest foe.
Dwight clenched his metallic fist, “So that’s it, then. They’re all expendable to you. You’re just as bad as Wulf.”
The Arbiter reached a hand to Dwight’s trembling shoulder. He stepped in to comfort his other self. The hitman locked eyes with his counterpart, then swung with his right hand, striking the arcane master in the cheek.
The amassed crowd gasped, Huea included, as the Arbiter recovered from the shock of the blow. Wiping a streak of fresh blood from his gashed face, he reassumed his defiant stance in front of the outsider to their school.
“Sleep,” the Arbiter uttered contemptuously.
It was the last thing Dwight heard as his senses were overtaken by blackness.
TWO
“I don’t fink ‘e likes ya anymore,” Bernard said, seated next to Dwight on the cell’s floor.
“Shut up,” Dwight replied to the projection he knew wasn’t actually there.
The private cage that the man and his imaginary tormentor occupied was cold, lined with straw, and lacking any furniture save a single wooden bucket. Dwight had already figured the purpose of the pail, but didn’t want to add that to
the list of indignities he’d be forced to face in his life. Outside of the cell, the remnants of Koshi’s forces that had not fled with their leader’s death were imprisoned behind glowing magical barriers. Dwight hadn’t guessed that the Enclave featured a prison beneath its training grounds.
The Bernard figment stood up from the stone floor, “We could‘ve ‘ad a sweet thing if you’d just kept quiet. Maybe even gotten to know that Huea a bit betta’; I bet ‘em magic types have all kindsa tricks in the sack.”
Dwight banged his skull against the bars behind him, “If you don’t stop talking, I swear I’m going to ask for a lobotomy the next time the guard comes back.”
“I’m jus’ saying, mate. You’ve been living wiv monks, don’t mean you have’ta live like one.”
The illusionary Bernard’s train of thought was interrupted by a rotating purple light sparking into existence outside the cage. It hung in the air briefly before expanding into a flat portal. The edges of the ring cut into the rock like a saw. Through the hole, Evan Zhu stepped into the damp prison, his black trench coat flapped in the howling winds radiating from his entrance. The other prisoners barely batted an eye at the otherworldly circle.
Void sniffed the stale air, “And where the hell did I end up this time?” His began inspecting the glowing prisons of the other mages, oblivious to Dwight’s unceremonious confinement. Pulling a small remote from his pocket, the mirror of Dwight’s, he knocked the device against his wrist, checking for errors.
“I’m down here,” Dwight finally said quietly.
Zhu turned, “Oh, so you are here.” He inspected his partner’s accommodations, “I’d say this is a new low for you, but I’m starting to doubt that’s true.”
