Baron Knight

by Jason Krate

  Rachel watched in disbelief as from out of seemingly nowhere there in the darkened hallway, a strange swirling hole that looked like the kind of whirlpool see saw every time she had taken a bath and drained the tub…only this "whirlpool" was leading somewhere else…and she bet it wasn't down to the sewers or storm drains of the city.

  "Ladies first" Baron Knight said to Rachel Addison, motioning for her to walk through the shadow Portal.

  "I'm not going through that thing!" Rachel Addison insisted.

  Baron Knight rolled his eyes, grabbed her by the back and tossed her through the shadow portal before following after her.

  * * *

  Rachel soon found herself falling out the other end of the shadow portal onto the cool semi wet grass of some clearing somewhere.

  Before she could attempt to push herself up off the ground, she felt her wrists and ankles become bound together by something, and then a gag was put around her mouth.

  What the hell was going on?

  She soon got her answer when she felt Baron Knight's gloved hands grab her and prop her up against the side of the small grotto that she now found herself within.

  "Stay here, and try not to make a sound" Baron Knight said, "I'll be back."

  He then left her there bound and gagged.

  He was gone for almost an hour, and Rachel was almost afraid that the metahuman freak who had taken her hostage in a sense had just abandoned her to be exposed to the elements of the cold night and to be eaten by the wolves she knew infested these woods.

  But to her relief and dismay, he came back….and he had the carcass of a dead wolf that he was carrying over his shoulders…like how her father would go out and hunt for food.

  She then chastised herself for comparing this DEMON to her father.

  Her father was a good normal man, not one of the freaks responsible for the world she and the rest of her generation now inhabited.

  Baron Knight then sat down next to her and snapped his fingers.

  Rachel felt like the hold on her mind that Baron Knight had put on her was now gone, had he…had he just snapped her out of that trance or whatever it was he had put her under?

  "I got what I wanted from you" Baron Knight explained his actions when he saw the surprised look in Rachel Addison's eyes, "you're free to leave. But considering it's a long walk back to wherever you live from here and you have no way to defend yourself from wolves. I suggest you stay the night, you can leave in the morning when it's safer."

  "Why so nice all of a sudden, what do you want?" Rachel Addison asked, not trusting Baron Knight one bit.

  "I don't dine alone" Baron Knight answered simply, and then he began setting up a fire "and I've been hearing your stomach gurgling ever since we left Bone Breaker's place. I hope you like wolf meat."

  Rachel Addison motioned to her bonds, "If I don't have a choice but to stay with you for the night Metahuman, you might as well untie me."

  Baron Knight obliged, and Rachel moved away from where Baron Knight stood in the grotto and watched as he made a fire and began skinning the wolf carcass he had procured from hunting.

  She continued to glare at him as he cooked the wolf meet over the fire, using his living shadow hands as a skillet of sorts.

  Flames didn't harm him in that form, so it made an effective cooking tool.

  It was solid enough to hold the cooking meat over the fire if he willed it…but not solid enough to keep the fat burning off of the meet from slipping through onto the fire beneath it.

  He then ripped of a slab of the cooked meet and handed it to Rachel.

  * * *

  "Sorry, I didn't bring my spice rack. I hope you like it plain" Baron Knight said to her.

  "Knowing freaks like you, it might have been poison instead of spice" Rachel Addison scoffed, and munched on the cooked wolf meet.

  Baron Knight chuckled, "Freaks huh? How many Metahumans have YOU met in your life to be able to label all of us as freaks? Especially when there are so few of us now…"

  "I know enough about Metahumans to know that my basis is correct" Rachel Addison countered, "I learned all about the "False heroes" of the old world from my parents. I know their true nature!"

  "Oh really?" Baron Knight said sarcastically, "then why don't you tell me your parent's knowledge on the metahuman race's 'true nature' then if your so knowledgeable and I am so ignorant?"

  "Why should I, Meta?" Rachel asked with scorn.

  "Call it an old man's curiosity" Baron Knight answered.

  "I know that all they ever do is cause chaos and destruction, and act like its best for everyone what they do. Just like the Deathborne siblings, they say that their actions are beneficial to Brightmoon City. We all know that's a lie every time they and their goons cause people to die and our lives to go down the shitter. We knew this would be what would be happen if demons like you survived the end of the old world. I swear, if I had known the Guru was a metahuman criminal I would have spat in his face and kicked him to the curb and refused his help from that point on. Freaks like him are to blame for the world's problems. My parents called them "Demons" and "False-heroes". They were right to call you and your kind that. You've all done nothing but live up to the stories my parents told me about Metahumans."

  "If you ask me think it's pretty hypocritical of people without powers to be so disdainful of people with powers in today's world, especially you. I saved your life back there…and all you've shown me is disdain for being an empowered person."

  "You kidnapped me" Rachel Addison pointed out.

  "Doesn't change the fact that before I forced you to help me, I did save you from being raped" Baron Knight pointed out, cutting some more meet off the cooked wolf carcass, "Not all of us deserved the disdain that you and people like you gave or give towards us simply for being born different and being afraid of our powers and what we could do. Yet you people gave it anyway. Not giving a damn about any of the innocent lives they harmed or destroyed with their bigotry in the process."

  "Only a Meta would dare use the word "Innocent" to absolve his kind's crimes. Why shouldn't I have some disdain for your kind?" Rachel asked, "Metahumans…"False heroes" destroyed the old world."

  Baron Knight then dropped the meat he was cooking to the side, stood straight up and snapped angrily at Rachel, "Metahumans didn't create this world, HUMANS did! They are the ones to blame!"

  "Why do you say that!?" demanded Rachel, "where do you even get the gall to be able to say that!?"

  "Because I was there…." Baron Knight said after a long pause, "I was one of those "False heroes" as you and your parents called my kind. What was to be Humanity's salvation instead became targets of their irrational ire! A tortured, hurting and ungrateful world was given the heroes that it had always prayed and called out for in their darkest hours….and they murdered them!"

  "No…My father told me it was Metahumans that did this, my mother as well. They were there as well!" Rachel said in defense of her deceased parents.

  "Then they both lied to you…." Baron Knight said with tranquil fury, "because THEY like their GENERATION could never accept their role in creating this world for their children. They found it easier to scapegoat than to accept responsibility for their actions, what they and their bigotry brought onto the world and the next generation….by supporting Genocide!"

  "That's a lie, meta!" Rachel snapped.

  "STOP CALLING ME, META!" Baron Knight snapped, "I am not a THING, I have a name!"

  "Well then have at it Meta" Rachel shot, "what is it?"

  "You couldn't possibly understand its significance… or its lack of significance" Baron Knight scoffed.

  "Try me…" Rachel Addison said, folding her arms and putting one leg over the other in an aggressive manner.

  "Fine…it's…" Baron Knight stopped in his attempt to say his true name, a name he hadn't used in years, when suddenly his Dark Sense power started buzzing in his head.

  Someone was coming this way a few clicks away down the path
way through the park that ran parallel to the grotto he and Rachel were staying the night in.

  Baron Knight quickly used his Shadow Powers to snuff out the fire, and then he looked over the side of the grotto's overhang.

  "What are you doing?" Rachel asked.

  "Shhhh!" Baron Knight silenced her, and then he pointed down the hill, "I can see people coming this way. I can see them in the dark, don't ask me how, I just can. And it's Silencer and Mourne. They have a small group of Marauders with them…as well as some civilians. Be quiet and they might not notice the smoke from the campfire in this darkness."

  Rachel, taking Baron Knight's word for it walked over to the edge of the grotto overhang and saw for herself that there were lights approaching their position in the distance.

  Once they got close enough, she saw to her surprise that Baron Knight was right.

  It was Mourne and Silencer…and they were accompanied by a group of armed marauders, who had a bunch of captive and frightened civilians with them.

  What did they need the civilians for?

  Baron Knight waited until the two villains and their escorts had passed by the grotto without noticing him or Rachel's presence there in the darkness of the night.

  "Stay here" Baron Knight said, handing her one of his extra Shadow Guns that he had on hand "That one is loaded with actual bullets. Use it to defend yourself if something happens while I'm gone. I've got some hunting to do."

  And with that, Baron Knight leapt into the air like, just like she had seen him do earlier tonight, and vanished in a flash of light and a puff of purple smoke.

  * * *

  Rachel then realized that this was her chance to escape, she had an armed weapon, so she could get out of the forest easily.

  She began to get up and make her way out of the Forrest, but then she paused, and looked back in the direction of where Baron Knight had vanished.

  She remembered all the tales of Metahumans that her parents had told her, how they were all murderous monsters who had caused the destruction of the old world.

  But if that was true, then why hadn't Baron Knight killed her.

  Or better yet, why hadn't he used his powers to rape her.

  She knew how men with power worked, anything with breasts and a young pussy was fair game for them and their carnal desires.

  She knew that all too well, which is why she always carried that knife with her when she went out on the job.

  But Baron Knight hadn't done any of that.

  He had in fact saved her from Bone Breaker's attempted rape, and he had given her food and shelter and protection for the night, and had given her a weapon to defend herself.

  He had also removed (supposedly) his hypnotic control over her actions and allowed her to leave.

  So why was she hesitating to take this chance to leave?

  She wasn't curious about the Shadow Freak, was she?

  She didn't like him anymore than he liked her.

  He obviously didn't like her because she was a prostitute, and she didn't like him because he was a freak.

  So why was she feeling the curious tug against her better judgement by her conscious to go and follow him?

  What was the matter with her?

  Was she really going to risk her chance at escape for…curiosity?

  She thought she was smarter than that.

  She had always taken the choices that would ensure her survival, as well as Kaylie's survival.

  Kaylie.

  God knows how worried sick she must be.

  The best thing she could do was to get back home, find her and get out of this damn city while she could before the inevitable power struggle that Baron Knight's presence would eventually and undoubtedly would cause.

  What did she owe the Shadow Freak anyway?

  Nothing!

  She had done what she needed to do to pay him back for helping her.

  She didn't owe him a damn thing.

  She couldn't believe that she was getting so worked up over a man like Baron Knight, a man who wasn't like any human being with a male sex organ she had ever met.

  Maybe that was the reason.

  Because he wasn't like any other man she had ever met.

  He was a mystery, an enticing one whether she wanted to admit it or not.

  And she couldn't help but wonder if she had met this man somewhere else before.

  His voice sounded very familiar.

  Maybe he had lied to her, maybe she was still under his control.

  Because against her better judgement, her curiosity began leading her towards the area where Baron Knight had shadow walked to.

  Unaware that such an action would seal and entwine her fate with Baron Knight's in a way she would never have dreamed.

  * * *

  South ArcView Park: October 7th, 2063: 11:00 PM

  Like a predator of the night hunting its prey, Baron Knight's living shadow form came to a stop, and perched itself on one of the branches of the trees overlooking the scene taking place bellow.

  He could see that the two metahuman members of the Sadistic Five who had murdered his daughter were now standing below him.

  It would be so easy to just use the darkness surrounding them to slice their necks, but Baron Knight didn't want to make this easy for these murderers…besides…there was innocent people at risk here…and Kilari would have wanted him to save them.

  He examined the scene from the shadows of the treetop he was perched within, and saw that his suspicions had indeed been correct.

  These two villains had indeed rounded up a bunch of civilians, and were planning on killing them, but not quickly like several other firing squads he had seen and interfered in upon returning to the city so far.

  As their men herded the terrified civilians into a corner facing one of the giant rock formations in the park, Silencer and Mourne were talking amongst each other…and Baron Knight with his ability to listen in via Darkness and Shadows could hear every word.

  "You only have yourselves to blame" Mourne said to the terrified citizens, "You didn't pay the electric tax, so now we have to take it out of your life insurance…which evidently means that we're going to have to kill you."

  "How about we make things interesting love" Silencer said to Mourne, "How about for every one of them that screams, I remove one piece of my clothing?"

  "That is a rather fetching idea love" Mourne smirked, "but how about we make it so each one who spurts blood instead."

  Baron Knight's patience ran out, and he decide to act.

  * * *

  Baron Knight let loose his trademark Dark Laughter.

  The Marauders and the two Sadistic Five members stopped what they were doing, drew their weapons and looked around to try and find the source of that dark laughter.

  Baron Knight took amusement in their efforts to do so, knowing they wouldn't find him until he wanted to make his presence known.

  He was making his voice carry through the shadows surrounding the villains like a ventriloquist would throw his voice with a wooden dummy in the days of the old world.

  Kilari's dead body flashed through his mind's eye as he eyed the two Villains from his perch.

  He was going to make them pay and suffer for what they did.

  Just as he had done to Bone Breaker a while ago tonight.

  "Who's out there?!" Silencer shouted out to the seemingly empty woods surrounding her, Mourne and the marauders.

  "It must be those resistance losers!" Mourne exclaimed, "Shoot them! Shoot them all now!"

  But before the Marauders could even try and shoot the civilians, a wall of animated darkness formed right in front of them, formed out of the darkness of the night that surrounded them all.

  The bullets vanished into the shadow realm once they traveled through this wall of Darkness.

  Before anyone could even get a chance to react to this turn of events, a Shadow Portal then formed around the civilians, and they vanished within a flash of light and a plume of smoke.<
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  "What the hell!?" Silencer exclaimed.

  "Where did they go?!" Mourne added, equally in disbelief at what had just happened.

  "Oh not far….Just outside of this park" Baron Knight's voice said mockingly, "but unless you can run very fast, you won't catch them…nor will you escape this park."