by Thomas Duder
“Naw bro, we can maybe pay five.”
Jimmy grunted, “You wound me. We’re worth three bro.”
“What in the world are you two arguing about?” Grimcan asked.
“How much he’s gonna pay us for this little tidbit,” Jimmy chuckled, “This counts as bodyguard service, and we AIN’T been paid for this yet!”
Grim whickered again and shook his head, “But…isn’t five greater than three, though? I don’t understand!”
Dash chuckled, “Five thousand versus thirty thousand, each. It’s an old joke between us - I can come up to ten grand, that’s about it, bro.”
“Twenty grand, then? Sounds good.”
”Fifteen, I agree.”
With that the two spat in their own palms before shaking hands. The goblin horse shook his head and grumbled to himself, “I will absolutely never understand you people, at times.”
Dash chuckled as he mounted Grimcan with a single fluid motion, “Hey hey, we might be friends but it’s business too! Besides, it behooves them to give us a discount on their services anyway.”
“Ten minutes,” Andy noted, taking up his position at Jimmy’s side, “We’ll buy you at least ten minutes time. Go ahead and move to the next point.”
“Castle gonna take Rook while King is off fuckin’ around,” Dash responded, laughing and waving at them before Grimcan took off at a good clip, heading east.
Watching them leave, Jimmy chuckled as he slowly took out a handkerchief, carefully rubbing at his noticeably protruding knuckles, “Ten minutes, huh? Is that all we got in us, bro?”
Growling at him, Andy noticed the darkness gathering overhead further down the street, heralding the arrival of the hunters, “Are you kidding me? I saw who pinged on my radar, and I’ve got their number. They’re still gonna put the hurt on us, though.”
“So, what,” Jimmy continued, craning his head this way and that, loosening up his thick neck, “Ten minutes?”
“We could hold them for fifteen, I guess,” Andy considered, watching the pair make their way down the street. Lightning reached out from their forms, scorching the underpass as they made their way towards the Cool Drivers.
Andy, watching them come closer, reconsidered and completed his thought, “Yeah, I’d say fifteen. But I don’t wanna give them the extra five minutes free.”
The bounty hunters conferred with one another in soft, whispered words, both realizing that they hadn’t accounted for Dash’s new transportation. Taking them in, the Cool Drivers noticed that they hadn’t changed since the last time they had surfaced in Neo Los Angeles: The Daggered. S-rank bounty hunters who were listed amongst the top ten hunters in all the world, and one of the few spellswords able to go toe to toe with The Shop.
Normally.
A married duo of dubious elfin lineage, the two were known for a versatile style of combat, able to employ either weaponry, martial arts, or spells with noteworthy skill despite their penchant towards their favored methods of combat. Despite that all, their true power lay in their combined techniques, taking advantage of their specialized training and high synchronization rate to one another.
Andy openly glared at the husband as Jimmy sized up the wife. As tall and broad shouldered as the wife was, the husband was slim and lithe. Drawing himself up slightly without being too conspicuous, Jimmy grunted aloud, “Hey. So…uh, you guys want to rumble or what?”
“Ten thousand,” Andy immediately spoke, catching the attention of all three, “Ten thousand, American, says we can keep you here for, like, fifteen minutes.”
Knowing, gentle brown eyes locked with his as the Amazonian wife, Mallory Daggered, stepped in front of her husband. Running her gloved hands over her close-cropped blonde hair, the hunter nodded, speaking in even tones, “I take it you won’t simply step aside?”
Clucking his tongue and shaking his head, Jimmy answered, “Naw. Already got a contract with The Shop.”
The husband, Devin, spoke as his hands began to move slightly, already weaving a spell, as fine-boned as his wife was broad, “Then there is nothing left to be said. You’ll strike us from behind if we go after Dash, and you have been contracted to The Shop. Fine.
Cool Drive, there is an active bounty on your heads. We’ll be taking you in as well.”
Making a rude noise, Jimmy watched with interest as Devin continued to weave his spell, neither Cool Driver taking up battle stance, “You wanna call in some reinforcement then? One on one or battle royale?”
Answering his question, both Andy and Mallory ran to the side in a blur of motion, heading towards the nearby gas station and mini-mart. Completing his quick-cast spell, Devin hit Jimmy with a stream of lightning, his specialty. Sending the Driver flying backwards, head over heels, Devin turned and ignored him as he considered the best way to aid Mallory in her battle against Jimmy. Taking in the Cool Drive van, Devin blinked in surprise as Jimmy slowly made his way out of the crater he had made upon landing.
“How in the world did you make that crater?” Devin asked. Reaching up to undo his ponytail, he let his lavender hair loose, a sure sign he was growing serious.
Chuckling and working his shoulder about, Jimmy pointed to himself, “Hey, cute stuff. You’re gonna hafta pay for any of my suits you destroy, y’know. Thirteenth Clause aside, the Bounty Hunters are pretty stiff about duels like this. You wanna bring me in, you’re gonna hafta pay five hundred for these threads yer trashin’.”
Ignoring the scorch marks that circulated throughout the three-piece business suit, Devin hissed, “Not many can take my Bolt and just shrug it off like that. I’ve heard of you, Cool Drive…but only myths and half-lies.”
“Hey, some would say those are half-truths, friendo,” Jimmy frowned, sighing as he took off his button up shirt, throwing it to the side, “Might as well take THAT off. It ain’t gonna survive this fight anyway. Damn.”
Stalking him, his fingers moving quickly as he prepared a new spell, Devin growled prettily, “You’re distracting me, or trying to. Talk! What kind of skill do you have to let you just shrug that off?!”
Noting the bounty hunter’s growing agitation, Jimmy shrugged, his large arms held wide as he chuckled, “Hey hey, your guess is as good as mine. It’s only been a minute or so…perhaps you’ll get it outta me by the end of this? Remember, you owe us ten grand if we hold you here for fourteen more minutes.”
Nodding, Devin focused once more on the fight and rushed Jimmy, closing the distance with a masterful step-in.
Keeping his arms wide, Jimmy grinned down at him, his eyes widening in anticipation. It had been awhile since he had a real fight on his hands, and by the gods, he was going to enjoy this one!
****
Round 5
The sound of rumbling cut through the relative quiet of the underground parkade, the overhead lights buzzing with electricity as they bathed an array of parked cars with unnatural light. The rumbling grew louder until a black helmed, black passport-suit bearing biker gently rolled down the ramp leading into the level. Black paneling, with customized tires thicker than the norm, the heavily modified Cook Customs Rambler stalked the lanes as the rider made their way slowly through the level, the nondescript helmet moving from side to side as they took in the scene.
Stopping at the end of the parkade, motorcycle parked to block the elevator there, the young Magus took his helmet off with a small sigh. One of the few accepted apprentices to The Shop, Magus Tyler Williams (double agent of the Order of Magi whose true name was “Warren Tremor,” a descendant of the Grand Magus’s bloodline) pulled back the sleeve of his bodysuit to look at his smartwatch. Brown eyed and dark hair cut short in a bowl cut, unable to ever get over the style from his Crucible student training, Williams tapped out a small spell upon the motorcycle before getting off of it, happy with the information the enchanted smartwatch read back to him, setting his helmet on the motorcycle seat.
He chuckled to himself as he tapped out a specific code on the service elevator. Getting on it, h
e mused quickly over his part of the Walpurgisnacht Jam, thinking back to the particular evil that had animated him so passionately.
Escaping the fiery clones of the beautiful woman, Williams, alongside the Ricketts twins, left the motorcycle at the apartment complex, hailing a taxi quickly and paying the Troll-gene cabbie for his haste and timing.
Having returned to The Shop to find an absolute whirlwind of chaos, the three apprentices quickly learned of Frank’s unchecked crash and of the situation in general.
At the time, The Generalist was none the worse for wear, though Dash grumbled of a strange bruise that covered his spine. Though Dash wasn’t as medically proficient as Frank, he was proficient enough to help Frank diagnose his own wounds, finding them strangely lacking.
“I’m telling you, it’s nothing, nothing at all,” Frank grumped, slightly disappointed at such a finding.
Worrying at his friend’s level of fatalism, Dash had almost snapped at Williams as the young Magus tried to get their attention. It was only then that both Shopkeepers noted the weariness of their comrades.
Glad that the Brownies were no longer on strike, Dash let them carry on about The Shop as he sat the three young men down on the couch, having taken up base at the summoning circles that led out of the Library Maze. Ordering tea quickly and explaining the precarious situation regarding the Walpurgisnacht Jam and the order they were going to make that night, as well as Control needing to be down for a bit, Williams equally explained their own situation.
“We discovered the woman we were investigating, while not being Karsiel-”
”Yeah, we found that out,” Dash chuckled, ignoring Frank’s glare.
About to wonder why Dash would say that after having explained that already, Williams cut that off as he remembered Dash’s monster-gene enforced amnesia.
Wondering at the irony of that, Williams continued, his tones even and controlled, “Well…what we did find out, though, was that she was enslaved to an Artifact spell-machine of the highest-tiered magic I have ever heard of.”
The younger Ricketts brother spoke up after a sip of tea, holding the small cup with both large hands, mirroring his twin brother, “Williams saved our lives, he did. Dropped a Higher Working as if it were nothing - he explained it to us while we escaped, he did.”
The older Ricketts brother spoke up as his younger brother took a sip, continuing the thought, “’Twas Geil Animula: Centerfold, a banned spell that continuously spits out clones at great detriment to the soul of the victim. The woman we were investigating was the victim, and completely under control of the Angel-gene too.”
“Save Geil Animula: Centerfold is a helluva banned spell,” Frank mused, “Also above the pay grade of a mere Angel-gene. Second sphere or no, even the Archangels would have a tough time running this one on their own.
Someone gave Karsiel that fucking spell, and I have an idea who,” he groaned in a rush of Overdrive-fueled intuition, “This was definitely just to let us know that he’s involved. It also gives Karsiel a goddamn angle on us we didn’t consider, the fuck. For all we know he has several other apartment complexes just infested with this poor woman.”
Dash blinked at Frank, openly worried as he murmured, “What are we gonna do, bro? We have time before we even have to declare the Walpurgisnacht Jam a thing…but this…”
Frank hissed, still lost in his thoughts as he mused aloud, “This is a high-level God-tier bit o’ magic. One could even say only Higher Gods or above have access to it. It makes sense if HE gave it to Karsiel, the beautiful bastard. Okay.”
Frank grinned suddenly, his chocolate brown eyes focused on Williams with sudden alertness, “Okay. I’m going to teach you how to cheat death, my friend. Pay attention, ‘cuz your training this coming week is going to be focused on one thing and one thing only.
How badly do you wanna save this woman, Williams?”
Williams shivered slightly at the memory, boarding the elevator as he remembered the grueling training he had undergone in the mere week since the declaration of the Walpurgisnacht Jam. The entire time he had undergone intense study and training, and as part of the vanguard striking against Karsiel’s forces it was up to him to find where the woman was held and free her of her bindings. If he failed, then the Shop would have to face a veritable army of her super-powered clones.
If he succeeded, though…for a moment he mused on the open, guileless worry on Dash’s scaled face, how focused Frank was on the woman’s plight.
So long as Puck’s diversion worked, then the Angel-gene wouldn’t be able to see him wandering through Babel from the ground level, intent on the lower basement levels where such enchantments could be maintained closer to the ley lines of Neo Los Angeles.
“It’s time we finished this, then,” Williams murmured to himself, “Save the woman, undo the spell, prove to myself that I’m truly worthy to call myself a Magus and save the day in the name of The Shop. Simple.”
With that Williams began to enter the hyper-excited trance state he had painstakingly learned, already preparing the spells he would need as he strode into the fray.
****
Glass exploded into the dark mini-mart as Andy hurtled himself through the window, arms crossed over his face, barreling over an ATM machine bodily before racing into the comforting shadows, disappearing amongst the rows.
Just as heedless, the large Elfin-eared woman crashed through the front doors of the locked shop shoulder-first, falling to her feet before scrambling up, intent on her prey. Unleashing a massive claymore from her back with both hands, the woman roared once before slashing the blade clear through two of the aisles. Not taking even the moment to take in the layout of the place, she immediately took to the air and transformed her horizontal slash to a vertical spin, bringing the claymore down with earth-shaking force, cleaving the floor apart as well as several of the stocked aisles.
Continuing her motion, flipping head over heels in place before grabbing the sword and wrenching it free from the ground with a single hand in reverse-grip. Gritting her teeth, the powerful mercenary glowed an icy blue as she reinforced her body’s flexibility, the fingers of her free hand making whip-like, snapping motions as she quickly cast her spell.
Once again in a surprising turn, the mercenary changed her velocity from vertical to horizontal, slashing through the rest of the aisles. Certain she had cleared the area, if not demoralized Andrew completely, Mallory slammed her claymore point-first into the ground, blasting a simple shockwave of concussive energy outwards from her at all directions, sending the tattered aisleways exploding away from her and plastering the walls of the brutalized shop.
Thankful they had paid up their insurance premiums, Mallory sighed and began to pat at her pockets, intent on a post-victory cigarette, certain in her husband’s victory only to stand stock still, her senses going haywire.
In their ten years of taking contracts, the bounty hunters had proven themselves all over the world, against adversaries and targets of various kinds. Amongst those years, they had suffered very few failures, two of them most noteworthy being against The Shop and the man who would, later, prove to be the Grand Magus of the Order of Magi himself (under a fake name that once belonged to an actual criminal - a one in a billion accident). In both cases she had been felled low by Obtenebration Magia, the “Shadow Magic” that only a few in the world could legally employ.
Outside of the Order and the Shop, there existed none willing to teach that particular school of magic, so in order to shore up her own capabilities she, instead, simply increased her ability to sense “strange magics” beyond the norm.
At that moment, her senses went completely haywire as the shadows all about the wrecked minimart shivered and trembled at the edges, the definite warning signs of Obtenebration Magia being employed.
Hissing to herself and taking up her claymore in a dual-handed grip, she hunkered down and kept her perceptions open, her gaze taking in every angle and every shadow as the dreaded power began to
build. She knew this spell personally, and knew that he had, without her even noticing, locked her into a pocket dimension of his own making.
Shadow World was the name of this spell, and the only way out of it was to defeat the caster.
“Chuchuchuchu,” Andrew’s voice came at her from all angles, the shadows growing darker as his power took hold even further. Calming herself with a chanted mantra, Mallory kept her stance low, her sword out to the side as she simply stepped in a four-step pattern, inscribing a square of personal space upon the floor whenever she felt movement within the shadows.
Unwilling to let herself be baited by the glint of metal here, the sound of teeth biting drawn chains there, Mallory hissed lightly, “Come out. Come out and FIGHT me, coward!”
“Huh, that’s interesting coming from the likes of you,” Andrew’s voice echoed about her, a soft susurrus with no known location, “Do you really think your fighting style is all that honorable? All cleaving everything, no style?”
”Function over form, baby,” the muscular bounty hunter grunted, her eyes moving about swiftly as she realized her Mage Sight had long since failed to pierce the tangible gloom, “Show me your face, and I’ll show you style.”
Chuckling wickedly, a shadow rushed her from a blind angle only to rear back into the darkness, his curse echoing throughout the pocket dimension as his kitchen knife, sharper than any normal cooking tool, bit through her clothes only to skitter off of blessed, enchanted chainmail.
Whirling about and narrowly clipping him with her claymore, Mallory cackled with wicked laughter, “What’s the matter, Cool Drive? Losing your cool?”
Rising to the bait, Andrew’s growling reached her from all angles, “I’ll show YOU cool! Eat this, Daggered!”
Surrounding her with echoing, soft hissing, Andrew began his assault - from every angle he struck before fading away as she hit him back, slashing her clothes to tatters to reveal the extraordinarily light and flexible chainmail she wore under them. Torso, greaves, gauntlets, she had come prepared for war but not for battle against the Shadow Specialist of Cool Drive. Without ever giving away even a bit of pattern or telegraphing his attacks, Andy’s shadows flew from one side of the room to the other, leaving behind glittering slashes through the dark, wrecked mini-mart. Whenever she didn’t strike one, it would simply disappear into the darkness on the other side of the room before sending out two more to strike at her.
