Baron Knight

by Jason Krate

  "Excuse me if I don't tear up" Rachel Addison's starred at him cynically, "I don't shed tears anymore."

  "Neither do I" Baron Knight responded cryptically, "I shed my last tears a long time ago."

  There was another bout of silence before Baron Knight spoke again, "Your daughter. Where would she be at this second?"

  "Why would I tell you that?" Rachel Addison asked incredulously.

  "Because…" Baron Knight answered, "As I said before, you are free to leave. Why you didn't take your chance to back in the woods is beyond me, but you aren't under anyone's control but your own. I'm offering to take you to your daughter. I can get us to Brightmoon City within half a minute. After that, hopefully, we both will never see one another again."

  "Thanks, but I'd rather walk" Rachel Addison blew off his request to Shadow Walk her back to the city, "Less of a hassle on the stomach that way."

  "I suggest you wait here" Baron Knight warned, "It's dangerous to go through this side of Lost Hallowing now. Wait until I return and I'll show you the safe way back to the station platform for the train leading back into the city."

  "Where are you going?" Rachel had said that before realising she shouldn't be prying into the affairs of a man she didn't like…or any man's affairs for that matter.

  "I'm going to visit my daughter, wait here whore, I won't be long" Baron Knight answered.

  Rachel watched as Baron Knight walked away from where he stood in the memory circle, heading towards the Cliffside area a fair distance away.

  From where she stood on the back porch area of the Baron Knight house, Rachel Addison saw that Baron Knight was heading for a pile of stones near the edge of the cliff.

  He placed his hand on the top of the pile of stones once he reached it, and after a few minutes of standing there, Rachel Addison soon realized what that pile of stones was.

  A grave.

  But a grave for what?

  Then she remembered what Baron Knight had said, about "visiting his daughter" before escorting her home.

  Was that his...daughters grave?

  * * *

  She quickly pushed aside her curiosity, and realized that now was the perfect opportunity for her to escape.

  It was daytime, not a lot of darkness anywhere for this metahuman to use to fuel his powers.

  She wasn't stupid, she had deduced that was how his powers worked.

  That he needed proximity to the darkness in order to use his powers.

  There was a clear, darkness free stretch of road leading into Lost Hallowing.

  If she left now, she could outrun Baron Knight before he knew she was gone.

  Not thinking about it for a second further, Rachel Addison took off running down the pathway leading away from Baron Knight's house and into Lost Hallowing.

  She didn't stop running until she reached a barricade blocking the road, made out of various pieces of junk and building pieces.

  She collapsed against the barricade briefly to catch her breath.

  Once she had caught her breath, she looked around at the barricade.

  She had heard about this, a few days after sacking the place, the Deathborne siblings ordered their marauders to gather what they could and build barricades.

  Cutting off the town from the outside by barricading all roads, forming a rudimentary circle around Lost Hallowing, therefore encapsulating the lone bridge into Brightmoon City…and at the same time, strengthening the Deathborne siblings hold on the city.

  Unless she could climb over the barricade, she was cut off from Brightmoon City.

  "Damn!" she thought, "it's too high and awkward to climb. I'll have to try the beach. There is no way they would try to barricade that. There's nothing there but the bridge, and there's no way to reach it…unless one person trying to break back into the city knew how to climb. I knew those years of learning rock climbing would come in handy one day."

  She looked around at each end of the barricade, and realized that it was unoccupied.

  It was also far too quiet.

  Despots were a paranoid group, so by cutting off the roadways that gave access to Lost Hallowing and therefore the bridge into the city, one would expect the barricades to be under watch.

  A squad of marauders armed to the teeth or something.

  So why was there no one here watching the barricade?

  That was when Rachel Addison heard some kind of mechanical sound coming from behind the barricade.

  She then watched in horror as the answer to her question regarding why this barricade had no marauder's guarding it stood up from behind the barrier and turned to look at her.

  Rachel instantly recognized it as one of those mechanical walker drones, relics of the old world that the Deathborne siblings used to reinforce their iron grip on the city and its people.

  It was used to patrol the city alongside those tanks, but this one was programmed differently.

  This one was programmed to repel borders, and kill any trespassers approaching the barricades.

  And Rachel Addison knew nothing of robotics and machines like this, but she knew the look a guard dog gave when it had spotted an intruder in its protectorate territory.

  And its glowering single red line that constituted as its 'eye' was looking right at her.

  With no way to go forward, and with a mechanical beast in front of her behind that barricade.

  Rachel did the only option left available to her, she ran.

  * * *

  Not back the way she came, she knew that would make her an open target.

  Instead, she ran to the side, running along the barricade line as fast as she could towards the beach area that ran parallel to the plateau that capped the North West section of Lost Hallowing.

  She flinched as she ran when she heard a loud crashing sound behind her.

  She looked over her shoulder briefly to see that robotic attack drone smash through the barricade like a child throwing a temper tantrum, pushing the barricade apart like it was made of building blocks and pickup sticks.

  It then began chasing after her.

  She ran as fast as she could.

  She knew what those things could do, she had seen them in action.

  That's why she kept running, but also dodging in a crisscross pattern side to side to confuse the attack drone.

  As she ran past the other barricades on her way towards the beach, the barricades exploded behind her…and more of those attack drones emerged until there was three of those drones chasing after her.

  Rachel decided to not look back, because if she did, she would slow down…and right now she couldn't afford to slow down.

  She had to make it to the sand, these machines were used to walking on solid ground.

  In the uneven terrain of the sandy beach that stretched around the plateau, their robotic legs would have trouble walking.

  As if it was a sign of good luck, she saw the beach area up ahead.

  That was when the attack bots opened fire on her.

  She barely managed to duck behind an adjacent rocked for cover before a hail of gunfire followed behind her.

  Once the gunfire had ceased, she resumed her efforts to run.

  She ran down the beach area, around the cape corner and down towards the area where she knew the bridge into Brightmoon City was.

  Sure enough, there it was when she turned the corner.

  When no further gunfire went off she figured that she had been right to assume that the Attack Drone walkers couldn't follow her onto the sand without slowing down.

  But they wouldn't stay behind her forever.

  She kept running until she reached the main support column for the tunnel side of the bridge.

  She looked up at the rock face of the plateau that ran vertically alongside the archway of the tunnel and the bridge to Brightmoon City above her.

  She quickly found some footholds and began climbing as fast as she could to get up to the bridge and then the tunnel.

  Once she was inside, sh
e could hide out until the Attack drones had given up chasing her and gone back to defend their posts…providing there wasn't one of those drones lurking in the tunnels that is.

  She pushed the thought from her mind, she didn't have time to think about that.

  She had to focus on the escape route in front of her.

  She was about ten feet away from the edge of the tunnel archway and the Subway train bridge when suddenly sparks flew above her as bullets ricocheted off the rocks above her.

  This caused her to lose her footing and fall sliding down the rock face of the vertical rock shelf of the plateau.

  She landed hard on her side on the sandy beach bellow, just as a rocket missile launched from one of the pursuing drones crashed into the spot where she had been hanging on the rock face.

  If she hadn't dropped right then and there, the missile would have hit her dead on and she would have been dead for sure.

  But that was off little comfort for her, because she saw the laser sight of the three attacking Attack Drone Walkers take aim at her.

  She was dead anyway, whether or not she had not been blown up by the missile!

  She put up her hands in a pointless attempt to shield herself, and thought about her daughter Kaitlin.

  If she died here, how would she survive…especially in Marauder occupied Brightmoon City?

  * * *

  The next thing she knew, she saw the flashes of the Attack Drone Walker's machine guns go off as they fire upon her directly with machine based precision.

  But none of the bullets ever touched her.

  Because from out of the darkness of the subway tunnel above her, a mass of darkness shot out and landed in front of her.

  It then formed a wall of animated darkness between her and the killer machines, the bullets passed through the wall, and vanished as if they had been sent somewhere else.

  In fact, that's exactly what had been done to the deadly bullets.

  The wall stayed up until the Attack Drone Walker's realized that their attacks were doing nothing and ceased fire.

  Once they had, the wall diminished and reformed into…Baron Knight!

  Rachel Addison was dumbfounded with shocked surprise once she realized that Baron Knight had followed after her, and had just saved her from being turned into hamburger by these Attack Drone Walkers.

  Baron Knight then drew his Shadow Katana, and after striking what seemed to be to Rachel Addison a dramatic pose, leapt at the Attack Drone Walkers that had attacked and tried to kill her.

  She didn't stay around to watch what happened next.

  She quickly got up off the sand and ran, taking cover behind the support arch of the bridge into Brightmoon City, covering her ears and crouching down into the fetal position to defend herself against showers of sand, shrapnel, missile fire, laser fire, damaged bits of concrete from the bridge that flew over the area she had huddled down against to defend herself.

  She stayed this way until the ground shaking and the loud noises stopped.

  Once they had, she cautiously peeked up over the side of the concrete support pillar she had been hiding behind.

  She was both amazed and horrified at what she saw.

  All the attack drones, they now law on the sand, destroyed.

  One was still intact, but missing a leg and smoking while lying down on its side in the sand, with a katana driven right through its power core.

  The area surrounding the drones and Baron Knight looked like a war had occurred, and in a way that was what had happened.

  But Baron Knight wasn't unscathed himself.

  The drones had managed to do some damage, there were several gashes on his person, and he was bleeding badly.

  He then grabbed his sword from out of the attack drone and placed it back in its scabbard, and he turned around to look at her.

  For a moment he looked confused as to why she was looking at him like that, and then he looked down at himself to see what she was looking at that was making her give off that horrified look.

  He looked down at the deep wounds and almost nonchalantly about the blood oozing out from said under his breath "aw…hell!"

  He then fell to his knees and collapsed upon the sand.

  * * *

  Rachel Addison turned around and prepared to try and climb the rock wall again…but she stopped.

  Once again, she found herself conflicted.

  Why?

  All she had to do was climb that wall, and sneak back into the city and get Kaylie so they can get out of Brightmoon City.

  So why couldn't she force herself to do what was necessary for her and her daughter to survive?

  She turned her head to look back at Baron Knight as he lay there, bleeding upon the sand of the beach.

  "You can do it" she thought to herself, "just climb and leave him behind. You don't owe him anything. He's a metahuman. He used you at the beginning, and he'll keep using you…just like all the men you ever bedded while on the job used you. Remember what your parents taught you, survive…do whatever it takes to survive. He's a freak, he wouldn't do the same for you. He brought this on himself by kidnapping you. Its how this world works, it abhors heroes and punishes those who try to play hero. There's nothing you can do for him anyway."

  But the more she looked at Baron Knight's bleeding self, the more another voice in her head began making its voice known to her, "You know that's not true Rachel. He's saved your life three times and you've never even given him a thank you, does that sound like the kind of monster your parents taught you about? If you don't help him, you'll never forgive yourself. It's your fault he's been injured so badly that he might die. If he didn't come and intervene you would be dead…just like all the other times."

  "I must be out of my mind" she muttered under her breath, and then she let go of the wall and rushed to his side.

  By this time he had feebly managed to prop himself up on one arm while attempting to stop the bleeding in his chest area with the other arm.

  "Don't move" she said to him, and knelt down to try and help him up.

  "Don't touch me!" Baron Knight snapped, "My blood is acidic twelve seconds after contact with air, it stabilizes after five minutes but it will severely burn you if you touch it."

  "Then I'll just touch the area's you're not bleeding from" Rachel Addison said stubbornly.

  "Why…" Baron Knight said looking at her, "Just…leave me alone. My healing factor will heal these wounds…in twenty minutes."

  "You won't be alive in twenty minutes" Rachel Addison pointed out, "your bleeding badly!"

  "Then let me die…" Baron Knight said, "It should be easy for you, you're a human being. They killed everyone I ever cared for because they were "metahuman freaks" who were "not human"…why should you be any different?"

  "I could have said the same about you, but right now I'm trying to save your inconsiderate ass for saving mine." Rachel looked around, trying to find something to use to stop the bleeding.

  "You don't get it…" Baron Knight scowled, "I don't care if I die…I was going to kill myself when this mission was over…there is nothing in this world for me anymore."

  "You and several hundred people" Rachel said cynically, "Can you still use those teleportation powers of yours?"

  "What for?" Baron Knight asked pessimistically.

  "I know a place" Rachel insisted, "Trust me, it will have medical supplies and we'll BOTH be safe there until you heal."

  Baron Knight almost didn't listen to her suggestion, he was content with just dying right there by bleeding to death.

  If he died, then he would see all the people he missed in his lonely life.

  His friends, The Heroes Legion, his family, his children, his wife Raven…. But then he thought about what happened to Kilari and the fact that the murderers who had raped and killed her were still at large and had gone unpunished.

  His mission wasn't over.

  As long as those bastards still drew breath, he would not be content to die and rejoin h
is loved ones in paradise if there actually was one on the other side of death awaiting him.