Baron Knight

by Jason Krate

  Soon the city would be back onto its feet again.

  Some were won over by this, others weren't so easily fooled.

  The Ghouls may have made the power come back on, but it was really just their way of subjugating the city by way of being in control of the power source….and everything that it powered.

  Like the war machines their army of marauders patrolled down their city streets with.

  Tanks, Robotic-Walkers… all for their "protection" they said.

  To keep the other marauders who roamed the country from coming in and laying waste to the city.

  People who knew better knew that it was just to keep the city under their control.

  Not to mention the members of the Deathborne gang we allowed to do what they wanted in the city, anyone who said differently, ended up buried in the dirt or being feasted on by the crows.

  The people of the city were expected to obey, without question, whenever these guys did anything or asked them for "Taxes" to pay for their newly acquired electricity.

  Electric Bills was what they called it.

  If you didn't pay them with all your Pebbles, they took you away to god knows where in the Tower fortress that the Deathborne Gang operated from.

  They had checkpoints set up in different areas of the city, mostly around the containment wall that had been erected around the city during the chaos of the Grim Destruction years ago, during the times of Martial Law before the old world and society collapsed.

  Citizens of Brightmoon were searched every time they went through these checkpoints….especially the one on the main bridge whenever citizens took the horse drawn train.

  On one of these trains heading back into the city, was Rachel Addison.

  She was looking out at the bay area of Brightmoon as the train made its way across the bridge.

  The calm of the ocean water that made up the bay area of Brightmoon City, it all made it safe to assume that the Bay area seemed like it was now the only peaceful and free area of the city now.

  It had happened so fast, no one understood that there had been a coup until the tanks and Mecha's were roaming down the street.

  Things had changed, but not in the good way.

  The Sex Trade was still in full swing, big time due to all the gang members that owned the streets now…much to her ire.

  Now she had to take six customers to feed herself and her adoptive daughter Kaylie, and if any of the Deathborne Gang members asked her, she was expected by her pimp Mario Sanchez to do them…money or no money.

  So far, today she had been forced to do three of these slime bags for free.

  As if she didn't hate this job enough, life through this curve ball her way…like a nasty kid breaking the window of a neighbor he didn't like…and she and her life was that very window in her opinion.

  Shattered and ugly.

  That's what life always was, and always would be.

  "Incredible. City gets taken over by an army of Marauders, and I still have to f*^% people to pay for both mine and Kaylie's supper….and now the city's electricity as well. The more things change, the more they stay the same." She muttered.

  Her clients in Lost Hallowing were fewer these days….but that was mostly because several members of the Deathborne Gang razed the place almost to the ground a few months ago….like a week after the coup.

  They were behind on the collective Pebble Tax, which was extortionately high for a sub-urban town like Lost Hallowing.

  Everyone that hadn't been killed in the fires or the razing, had left….for hopefully greener pastures.

  Not everyone was so lucky.

  They were now prisoners in their own homes, in their own city.

  * * *

  She then saw the tunnel into the city show up ahead of her commuter train and she reached into her black leather jackets left pocket to pull out her Identification papers, proving she was a citizen of the city…even though she knew that wouldn't stop the guards from frisking her.

  They always frisked her.

  Sometimes very thoroughly.

  She missed when the train went through the tunnel without stopping until it reached the station at the end.

  She grumbled silently when she saw the female Deathborne Gang member "guard" approach her end of the train after examining the Identification papers of all the other passengers in the cars in front of hers.

  Something strange however happened when the female guard approached the seat area in front of her own.

  There was this man, wearing a hooded robe, sitting on the seat in front of her.

  He had gotten on the train with her, but she had thought nothing of him…until the female Deathborne Gang member "border guard" asked him for his Identification papers.

  He didn't respond, and then she threatened to shoot him if he didn't look at her and show her his identification papers to confirm he was a citizen of Brightmoon City.

  He then turned and looked at her, straight in the eyes.

  Rachel swore she saw that female Deathborne's pupils shrink and a blank, mindless expression appear on her face before she heard the man say, in a dark, distorted (but strangely familiar) voice say in a commanding tone.

  "You don't need to see my Identification" he had said.

  "I don't need to see your identification" the female Deathborne said in a monotone style voice, staring right into the hooded man's eyes.

  "The train can go ahead into the city, it's clear, everyone checks out" the hooded man spoke again in that commanding tone of voice.

  He then snapped his fingers in front of her seemingly stupefied face.

  The female Deathborne then blinked and looked around in confusion, seemingly unaware of what had just happened.

  She then stepped out of the subway car, and called ahead to the Gatekeeper of the tunnel into Brightmoon City, "The Train can go ahead into the city, it's clear, everyone checks out".

  * * *

  As the train made its way into the tunnel, heading for the old "West Brightmoon" Subway station.

  Rachel had been starring at the hooded man from where she sat behind him with suspicious eyes.

  What was that?

  How could he have just looked at that female Deathborne gang member and basically told her to "back off"…and she obeyed without shooting him until he was hamburger meat?

  The look in that Deathborne woman's eyes, the monotonous voice.

  If she didn't know any better, she would have gathered that the hooded man had hypnotised that Female Deathborne Gang member into letting the train pass into Brightmoon City only 90% searched by the border guard that encircled the city.

  That was just silly of her to think that.

  The man in the hooded robe couldn't possibly have hypnotized her.

  Stuff like that had died in the world, a long time ago.

  Or had it?

  She had heard tales on the street about the Deathborne Siblings and their seemingly "demonic" abilities….maybe….

  Rachel put her mind off of it.

  What this guy might be, it was none of her concern or business.

  Her main concern was getting home to Kaylie.

  She didn't follow him.

  But he did go the same way that she was going when walking out of the subway station to the ruined occupied city above.

  He then ducked into an alleyway a few blocks away from the station on the same sidewalk she was walking down.

  When she had seen this, Rachel suspected that he knew that she was behind him and thought that he was following her.

  That the hooded man must be waiting to jump her in the alleyway.

  Rachel then drew her "protection" knife that she used to make her overeager customers back off when they tried to get something free out of their sessions with her, ready to defend herself if that was in fact the case.

  She would have elected not to walk down this way and just go a different way back home, but this was the fastest way there…and the safest.

  She pitied
the poor soul who tried to jump her.

  She then walked past the mouth of the alleyway, and found that the hooded stranger wasn't there waiting to jump her like she had expected.

  Instead, he was there standing with his back to her in the middle of the alleyway.

  He had pulled his hooded robe off, revealing a strange sight.

  He was wearing some kind of black Trenchcoat underneath that ratty old hooded robe he had been wearing a moment before, and…some kind of robust metallic helmet/mask looking thing on his head that obscured all of his facial features…save for his glowing red eyes.

  Eyes that she was glad were not looking right at her as she looked down the alleyway in shocked surprise at the strangely clothed man with the glowing red eyes.

  He then put some kind of slouch hat looking thing on top of his head, and then to Rachel Addison's amazement, he then leapt from the ground…and landed onto the top of one of Brightmoon City's many ruined buildings and then he disappeared from her sight as he ran along the rooftops like some kind of monkey or cat!

  Rachel Addison couldn't believe what she had just say.

  It was another one of THOSE guys, first the Deathborne siblings, now this trench coated freak!

  Those damn freaks still existed?!

  There were now Meta's in the city?

  That was the last straw for her.

  The Deathborne twins may have been rumored to be "Meta's", but she had just seen a real one.

  If Metahumans were still alive, and coming to this city, then the destructive horror their powers always unleashed that her parents had told her about would surely follow thereafter.

  She had to get Kaylie and leave the city before any of that happened.

  Now more determined than ever to get home, Rachel Addison ran, as fast as she could.

  * * *

  While Rachel Addison was running to get home.

  The trench coated figure was leaping from rooftop to rooftop, his glowing red eyes burning like hot coals.

  The trench coated figure….was Minra Moraes.

  He was now wearing a rudimentary recreation of his "Baron Knight" costume that he used to wear a long time ago when he was a superhero in a different world, in a different time.

  As he used his powers, which were now starting to come back to him….almost like riding a bike again, only these were powers and abilities he hadn't fully tapped into in a long time.

  It was more like gaining ones lost limbs again after losing them in an accident.

  Only, it was no accident, he had chosen to willfully shun these powers when he abandoned his "Baron Knight" persona so many years ago.

  Baron Knight was reflecting on the current state of the city.

  The tanks and mecha's patrolling the streets, the citizens too scared to fight back and retake their city from the marauders who had laid claim to it, and the state of decay and rot in the city that had once been his home a long time ago.

  It was almost a cruel irony that things were now almost the same as they had been like back in his day, people to scared or apathetic to the state of their city being under siege by crime, corruption and insanity.

  He paused for a second to catch his breath and look around at the post-apocalyptic ruins of Brightmoon City.

  "Hello Brightmoon City, it's been a while…." He said to himself, while also in a way talking to his old "home" in a strange way of getting "reacquainted" with the burnt out burg he had abandoned for so long "You know, back when I was young and the world wasn't a burned out shell…you used to be a selfish two dollar whore that I saved from many people and metahuman supervillians that wanted to F&^%$ you over, rape and pillage you for their own selfish gain. And how did you repay me? By betraying me, making me a pariah, laughing at the pain you and your ungrateful citizens caused me. Well now…you're a rotting corpse that has vultures in the shape of people pecking at your flesh and bone in an effort to survive…because you didn't WANT a hero to defend you. Who's laughing now?"

  Baron Knight chuckled darkly.

  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  Even with the end of the world basically having happened in a sense, the people of Brightmoon City were still the pathetic cowards that he risked his neck for every night only to be hunted down and have the people he saved time and time again scream out for his blood.

  But he didn't care about that.

  Not the irony.

  Not Brightmoon City's current state of being under a reign of terror by rejects from a "Mad Max" movie.

  And certainly not Brightmoon City's populace.

  He had washed his hands of this city and its people a long time ago.

  No, there was only one thing on his mind right now.

  Only one reason why he had come back to Brightmoon City, dressed like he was now, why the Knight of the Night was back: Revenge!

  He then heard a thunderclap sound off in the cloudy sky above him, and when it began to rain heavily, he closed his eyes, and let the raindrops hit him on his masks eyeholes….and remembered.

  It was on a night like this that the event that had turned him into Baron Knight had occurred, and by fates cruel intentions, it was on a stormy night like that one that the Baron Knight's resurrection from the ashes' like a phoenix had occurred.

  Baron Knight remembered that night well.

  He would never forget it.

  It was the night, a few weeks ago…when five of the worst members of the Deathborne Siblings army, the "Sadistic Five" had lead an attack on Lost Hallowing.

  When he lost everything again.

  * * *

  Moraes household, Apartment complex-B ruins: September 30th, 2063: 2:00 AM

  Minra Moraes was deep asleep at this time.

  A long time ago, he wouldn't be able to sleep at this time of night because his powers prohibited it.

  But in shelving away his "Baron Knight" persona, he had fought back against his mutation stubbornly until it eventually relented and away went his sleeplessness.

  It had been rendered dormant like the rest of his powers.

  He would have it no other way now.

  That meant that the damned Baron Knight and that demented delusion of his that he was meant to be a hero no matter what to people who hated his kind for being born different was dead….and it was never coming back.

  Minra had always slept alone, he had for the longest time.

  Not that it bothered him.

  He had gotten used to it.

  He had his memories of Raven.

  That's all he needed.

  That was when he felt a female hand brush against his aged cheek.

  He opened his eyes in surprise when he realised that it was a female hand that had touch his aged cheek, and he found himself looking into the emerald eyes….of his deceased wife, Raven Ducard.

  She was lying beside him, and before he could say anything she leaned in and kissed him.

  Minra Moraes hungrily wrapped his arms around his wife and kissed her deeply.

  That was when he realised that this time, Raven was naked.

  God.

  Even after all these years, her memory still had the beautiful façade befitting a goddess of magic.

  Shure, she was a witch, not a goddess…but that wasn't his opinion on her.

  She had meant everything to him, just as his friends and children had…but she meant more, because she was his wife and he loved her…he still did.

  He then felt Raven pull herself closer against him, slipping her legs under him until she was straddling him as she lay there in the bed with him.

  Feelings and desires he hadn't felt in a long time began to overcome him when she did this.

  He could feel the wetness of her sex surrounding his own beneath him like he always had felt when he had made love to her when she was alive.

  This was too real.

  It couldn't be a dream again.

  Looking into his wife's beautiful eyes, he positioned his own sex above hers.
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  For a moment he was afraid to do what he wanted to do next.

  But then she looked at him with that smile of hers again….and he decided to hell with it.