The Tjao Chronicles

[Dab master]

THE TJAO CHRONICLES: CHAPTER ONE


Bitter Introductions

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Hate. That was all Tim felt for the men before him. The soldiers fired at him fruitlessly, his incantation turned their bullets to water and a single wave of his hand caused spikes of ice to erupt from the floor and tear through their flesh. The narrow concrete corridor of blinking emergency lights was already dripping in the blood of their comrades as they continued their futile resistance. He floated it above it and killed a few more with a torrent of green faerie flame with nary a thought.

The killing had long lost its satisfaction. His anger burned but it was not satisfied in the slightest by the continued outpouring of his grief upon these…

Ants. He thought to himself. Fucking ants. They don't even know why I'm killing them. Why I burned their White House. I hate them, but they're just doing their jobs. There's no satisfaction in this.

A man whimpered in the corner for mercy.

"Do you have the slightest idea what your pissant nation did to deserve this?"

The man wept.

"This is a fucking waste." Tim scowled. Vengeance was no longer enough. It was just monotonous as this point. He could only destroy so many of their military bases, so many of the BETSA facilities, kill so many of their leaders, before it just became a drag. A job. A slog.

"But what else is there to do!" He cried out to no one.

They had destroyed everything. Everything he cared about. Gone. He wanted it back, he wanted it all back so much, but all he had left was revenge, and the harrowing possibility of starting again.

"What else is there to do? I think you've done quite enough already."

Tim turned and saw a familiar face standing in front of the vault doors before him.

Agent Cade had no weapon, all he wore was a black suit and sunglasses. He knew any weapon he carried would be a waste.

"You think you can stop me with words I gather? Go on, speak. If you think whatever it is you have to say can keep me from banishing you to one of the nastier hells then I'm interested."

Tim's curiosity was piqued but he couldn't imagine anything Cade could tell him that would be sufficient to keep him from delivering the agent to a ghastly undeath.

"Your son is alive for one."

Tim's fists clenched.

"I can tell when people lie Cade."

Cade chuckled. His disturbingly featureless face contorted into what almost seemed to be a smile.

"Then you know I'm telling you the truth."

Tim grimaced. "Not necessarily. They could have made it to where you totally believe a lie."

Cade's smile grew wider showing teeth as white as ivory and much too angular.

"But they didn't. Scry it out yourself. We killed your wife; we took the boy. We made you think someone else killed them both hoping you wouldn't look for him. Turns out there were flaws in that plan."

"Flaws? Flaws like me draping the Wilkinson Memorial with the corpses of senators? Flaws like me turning the Octagon into cursed ash? Those flaws?" Tim raised an eyebrow getting meager joy from watching Cade squirm at the mention of his own failure.

Cade grimaced. "Yeah, those flaws. The big one was thinking you'd be dumb enough to think it wasn't us that killed your wife. Or at least not pulling off the lie well enough. But that's in the past now. We want to make a deal."

"What deal could you possibly offer me that isn't giving my son back immediately in return for me not hunting down everyone in the military industrial complex with a rank above private?"

"Neutrality. We give the kid up, we don't raise him to be a brainwashed American super soldier as a child, you leave this universe."

"Why the hell would I do that?" Tim asked, almost more curious than angry.

"Because we could still kill him. But we were afraid that if we tried to coerce you into letting us keep him…that you might think that that was worse than him just dying, and that you might decide to speak the unspeakable names in the middle of every American city just to give us our "just desserts." This way your plan stays…available. And so does ours."

Tim made his face impassive while he thought.

"Twenty-one years. When he is twenty-one, I will return and if he refuses to go with me after living in your society in his youth…I will have failed."

Cade's face grew stiff. "So, we only have three years to try and get him to love apple pie and the stars and stripes huh?"

Tim nodded sagely. "And when I come back and he joins me I will kill every single person in your government with a position above village dogcatcher, just like I promised."

Cade nodded and Tim could feel his fear. Tim smiled for the first time in months.

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Ahiga stared blankly at the meeting room slideshow in utter boredom as Agent Cade droned on and one over the exact route of the Ottoman prince through Centennial City.

"Now, as you can see here the royal yacht will be coming up the Mississippi at a leisurely pace, this is a sightseeing visit as much as it's a diplomatic one and the prince wants to see Tanjat Aljadida and make a big deal about the "his fellow Muslims across the Atlantic" before heading north to the capital. Our intel has indicated that the Crimson Knights are planning on attacking the boat before he reaches the capital somewhere on the lower Mississippi. You will be charged with ensuring that they fail. Any questions?"

Yekaterina's hand shot up and Cade audibly sighed causing Yekaterina to smile. Yekaterina was tall, slimly built, fair with short white hair, blue-eyed, and had vaguely elfin facial features despite her claim to have 100% human ancestry.

"Yeah, I just wanted to ask why the Crimson Knights want to kill the Ottoman prince and not, say, his father? Wouldn't that make more sense if they wanted to provoke the empire?" She shrugged.

"We know that the Crimson Knights want to start a war-"

"You don't say." Ricky interjected.

"Shut the fuck up Ricky!" Cade snapped.

Ahiga was both annoyed and amused. Annoyed that Ricky was dragging out the meeting, and amused at Ricky's ability to infuriate the usually emotionless Cade with his very existence.

Ricky showed no shame as he leaned back in his chair and continued to take a long drag on his cigarette. Ricky was tall and lean like Yekaterina, but his frame was more bulked out by muscle, his skin was a light brown in contrast to her pale pink, his chin was lined by light stubble, and his hair and eyes were dark. Ricky got away with stuff, no one else in the squad quite knew why since no one really knew what Ricky did exactly even though everyone else had their talent listed on their badge.

Cade inhaled and exhaled and wrung his hands before continuing. "Now, as I was saying, the Crimson Knights want to start a war, but we assume that they figure the Sultan has a hotter temper than his son. So, we hypothesize that they think killing the prince will trigger an emotional reaction in his father and cause him to drive his nation into war with whoever they choose to pin the blame on."

Cade ran a hand across his pale forehead and through his black hair before looking at Liban and continuing. "Liban I expect you to keep everyone in line for this mission. I don't want any incidents, this is a new squad, you all have to prove yourselves. Especially you Ahiga, BETSA has high hopes for you."

Ahiga shot up ramrod straight. "I'll get the job done sir; you can count on it."

Finally, a chance to prove myself on a real mission! Not killing some pissant demon in Salem!

Liban just nodded stoically. Ahiga looked at him with slight jealousy.

Everyone takes him so seriously, he's so…experienced. Ahiga told himself the feeling swelling in his chest was jealousy, or perhaps respect.

Liban even looked more professional than everyone else. Yekaterina was wearing casual jeans and a jacket, Ricky was wearing a suit that looked like it hadn't been ironed in a few years, and Liban had on the grey and black military fatigues of a BETSA commander. Even his body looked refined. He was taller than Ricky with more musculature, darker skin, bold facial features, and close-cropped curly black hair that was pleated in the back.

Not like Ricky. Ahiga thought glancing over to the other man who had somehow donned sunglasses and acquired chewing gum in the thirty seconds that Ahiga had looked away. Ricky pulled down his sunglasses and gave Ahiga a wink before turning back towards Cade. Ahiga snapped his head back towards Cade as quickly as could.

"Now…you all need to learn to make your skills complement each other, this isn't a training mission, this is important. You will be going up against powerful Crimson Knight fighters and they are brutal. We assembled this team because we thought that your skills would mesh well, and you impressed the brass with previous training-wheel missions and exam scores. Do. Not. Disappoint. Us."

"No need to worry Mr. Cade, I ken we can bash some cultists lickity split." Kobold smiled behind his great red beard and Cade nodded soberly before leaving the room.

Liban stood up and strode into his former position.

"Let's get to work everyone. Today we kick ass."

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"Your clothes don't look very spec-ops." Yekaterina said looking Ahiga over.

Ahiga looked down at himself and had trouble disagreeing when he was wearing jeans, leather work boots, a jean vest, his turquoise and silver necklace, and a red t-shirt.

"Good thing we aren't spec-ops then, we aren't supposed to look too military." He said sternly.

Yekaterina snorted and rolled her eyes. "Yes honey, we all went to the mandatory classes. Why are you so serious about everything? Wait let me guess, you were a boy scout when you were little."

Ahiga narrowed his eyes. "Nah, the foster families tended not to put out that kind of cash."

"Huh. Well, you got me beat, I'm uncomfortable now. At least you're not a pushover like Kobold."

"Go shag yourself lassie, you're all wee babes to me." The short, squat, flannel-wearing, red-headed man's heel turn, and huff of indignity would have impressed an English heiress.

"Well then it's pretty damn embarrassing that you ended up being stuck with a bunch of rookies now isn't it Kobold?"
Kobold's face turned red at the rebuke from Liban and he muttered to himself as he stormed off across the hangar floor. Liban turned towards them.

"Kobold's a good fighter, you kids try not to bust his balls too much ok?"

Ahiga found Liban's smile endearing, and Ricky raised an eyebrow.

"You're not much older than us Liban, actually I'm pretty sure that you are younger than me."

"And you're still working for me Ricky, mostly because the bosses don't trust you anymore than they can throw you."

Ricky chuckled. "Yeah, I was too busy getting my nose in pussy instead of the bosses ass."

Yekaterina gagged. "Fuckin' gross Ricky."

Ricky stuck his tongue out at her while Liban smacked his own forehead with the heel of his hand

"Inshallah! Just get in the helicopter already you infants."

Ahiga walked across the garage and was the first in the helicopter, or so he thought until he saw a small Asian woman wearing what looked like an oversized hoodie in the cockpit.

"Sup' you air force or BETSA-"

The woman shushed him and went back to closing her eyes and waving her hands over the cockpit while Ahiga turned towards the recently arrived Liban.

"That's Ae-Cha, she's our psionics expert."

Ahiga nodded. "So, what's she doing with the copter?"

"I have no idea honestly." Liban said with a shrug.

Ae-Cha got up and walked back towards the seats.

"I am finished, we should be shielded from psionic or memetic assaults while we are in the helicopter. Outside of it I will due my utmost to shield us from the enemy if they choose to wield such weapons. The spirit of the helicopter is also appeased."

"The helicopter has a spirit?" Ricky said with a quizzical look as he walked up the stairs.

"All things have some spirit given enough age and emotional attachment. Someone loved this helicopter very much at one time and I have a knack for helping machine spirits gain better control over their faculties. Think of it as a cheat cut to primitive AI."

Ricky looked horrified. "Oh God I'm going to have to apologize to all those socks from high school! And my pillow! And that watermel-"

"Shut the fuck up Ricky!" Yekaterina, Kobold, Ahiga, and Liban yelled in unison while Ae-Cha's face grew crimson.

The helicopter took off on its own as the hanger doors opened. Ahiga looked out at the ground disappearing below and felt a brief quibble in his knees. He didn't like heights, but he would never show or tell that to anyone.

I'm not weak. He thought to himself. I didn't get here by being weak.

He took his eyes away from the window and looked at everyone else. Ricky was typing on a PA of unknown origins while Yekaterina and Kobold traded jibes, Ae-Cha read a book, and Liban looked out at the night sky.

"We're approaching Centennial City everyone; the yacht will be in the Mississippi to the south and we'll be landing on its helipad. You are to blend in with the crowds across the ship and be weary for any suspicious behavior. Ricky, I want you to stay near the prince and watch for any suspicious activity, keep him safe. If a guest asks any of you directly if you are a member of a mag-squad you are obligated by international law to say yes. However, if the person is really suspicious…you may come down with temporary amnesia. Understood?"

Everyone nodded at Liban's insinuation. The treaty rules were the rules, but some were to be treated as sacred taboos and others…others got bent in extraneous circumstances. Ahiga could understand that even if the…uncertainty made him uneasy.

The helicopter began to descend towards the prince's yacht. Ahiga wasn't sure he had ever seen such opulence in his life; the yacht was like a glowing jewel on the water. A shallow draft made up for by wide bulk that accommodated an enormous swimming pool that made up much of the back pf the ship's surface area. The turquoise blue pool was ringed by mingling party goers while others staid further up the boat on the dance floor, and presumably even more were in the spacious building taking up the front half of the boat's deck area.

His thoughts were scrambled as the helicopter jolted from hitting the helipad and proceeded to roll slightly as the river rocked the ship. Ahiga fought the urge to throw up even as he exited the helicopter. Ahiga was surprised no one seemed to be interested in the new arrivals until he saw that his group were all much more simply dressed than the party goers who seemed to be engaged in an arms race of gaudiness as men walked around in suits of pure silk and women wore dresses decorated with gold thread and diamonds.

Ahiga began to feel a slight tingle in the back of his head.

It's Ae-Cha, Ahiga. May I enter your mind so I can establish a psychic connection? It will allow all of us to know roughly where the other is, and if they have encountered trouble.

Ahiga shook his head. He had received telepathic communication before, but he would never find it normal.

Go ahead Ae-Cha. He thought.

Thank you Ahiga.

He noticed no new feeling in his mind at first but as the group spread out he could feel a…connection between himself and the others. As if invisible strings stretched out between them.

Meh, I don't think I like this.

He walked on despite his unease. The pool was filled with mingling people, a lot of older men and younger women, a similar picture was repeated in the Jacuzzis and Ahiga felt slightly disturbed. He walked up to a nearby shrimp bar and tried to appear casual as he grabbed a glass of obese shrimp decorated to look as if they were diving into cocktail sauce.

If nothing else happens this night I have at least acquired shrimp. He thought to himself while slurping down the largest sea bug he had ever seen. Goddamn rich people they get the best food.

He saw a kitschy sushi bar serving sturgeon rolls wrapped in ultra-thin gold leaf with foie gras and veal and suddenly felt slightly less jealous of the wealthy's eating habits even as he guzzled down more succulent shrimp soaked in richly spiced Chinese cocktail sauce.

"Excuse me waiter!"

Ahiga turned around to see a tall, lanky, white man in a tight pink polo shirt and khaki shorts beckoning him.

"I asked for heavy ice in my drink and hardly got enough to chill it! No one has ever wanted warm champagne so why would you people assume I would like it!?"

Ahiga shrugged and turned away. "Not my problem."

The man gaped. "I'll tell the staff about this!"

Ahiga turned around again and smiled slightly. "Go ahead, I doubt they'll care since I don't work here."

"Then what the hell are you doing here! You don't look like a guest."

Ahiga thought about what Liban said earlier.

"I'm here for the shrimp."

He walked into the main building on the deck content that there was no threat yet. The party inside had decidedly different vibe as people gathered around the interior bar and dance floor in various states of inebriation and. Ahiga's sense of smell was stronger than a normal human, a fact he had never disclosed with the BETSA not thinking it important and being afraid that it would lead to him not being considered Atlas class. Nothing he had read had ever suggested Atlas class mags had enhanced olfactory senses, he sometimes wondered if he had a non-human ancestor in the woodpile. Regardless of how he got it he was not grateful for it now as he had to take in far too many sweaty bodies, perfumes, sex hormones, and the stink of vomit.

He briefly pinched his nose by the bridge and remembered why he didn't like crowded places as he skirted his way through the crushing crowd of American and Ottoman elites. He almost struck one party guest for tugging on his left hair braid but reminded himself he probably shouldn't cripple a billionaire. He slowly wormed his way around the stripper's stage awkwardly keeping his eyes off of what was happening up on the stage and tried using his sense of smell and hearing to eavesdrop on various conversation only to get bad pick-up lines from socially impaired tech magnates, snippets of corporate politics, and inane verbal dick measuring contests between oil and arms manufacturing CEOs. He shook his head and tried to close out some of the sensory noise.

This is useless. Are the Crimson Knights even here? Maybe it was misinformation or somebody freaking out over radicalized teens talking shit on the internet again. Fuck, I need a drink.

He wasn't afraid of getting drunk, alcohol always affected him less than normal humans, and he reasoned that the drink would let him blend in better. As he headed towards the bar however a hand grabbed his shoulder and he spun around ready to attack any manner of monstrosity only to see a skinny blonde woman with bloodshot eyes draped in a glittery dress.

"Are you one of the Arab princes? I like your costume."

Ahiga could tell she was inebriated and decided to try and shake her off as quickly as possible figuring this an utter waste of his time in every conceivable direction.

"No, I'm not Arab and I'm not a prince, I'm native and I'm just trying to get a drink if you'll excuse me."

She responded with a giggle and grabbed his hand as he turned around. "Ooh Native! Exotic! You know I went to Lakota on a business trip once when my father was trying to buy out the tribe's rights to the shale. Beuuutiful country, I wanted to buy one of their ponies, but they wouldn't let me! Rude much! So, how'd you get enough money to get in here?"

Ahiga felt his blood pressure rise and gritted his teeth. "I'm here on a job ma'am, now if you'll excuse me, I must be going."

He began to pull away, but she grabbed his jean vest and pulled on his ID badge causing it to clatter to the floor. As he bent down to pick it up in a hurry, he saw her stagger back and disappear into the crowd. He forgot the drink he wanted and stormed down the hallway in anger before thinking back on what happened and putting the picture together in his brain. He began to run down the hallway towards the nearest connection.

Ricky.

Ahiga pushed aside Senators, sheikhs, and superfund managers as he reached the door to the prince's room and just before he put his hand of the doorknob he was knocked back by an unknown force sending him careening across the pink carpet of the hallway.

He looked up to see a blue skinned androgynous humanoid in a white gown holding a rectangular sword blade to his throat.

A Sri Jayan. He thought to himself as he lifted his eyes to his assailant's face and saw his suspicion confirmed by the two small horns on their head directly above two gold-colored primary eyes. Their primary eyes bore into him while the third eye in the middle of their forehead lay mercifully hidden.

"What business have you with the young prince sapien? Speak soon or I will take your off your head quicker than your neurons can fire!"

"You're the prince's bodyguard?" Ahiga blurted out.

The Sri Jayan nodded.

"Then you need to let me in his room." He pulled out his BETSA id card. "The prince is in imminent danger! There are agents of the Crimson Knights onboard this yacht right now!"

The Sri Jayan stayed stalk still for a heartbeat before tucking away their iztar blade.

"Very well. You may enter the prince's room but-" Ahiga was already upright and swinging the door open before the bodyguard completed their sentence. "-they are busy."

Ahiga saw the prince's clothes strewn across the floor and the prince laying naked under the silk covers of his bed cuddling with Ricky.

"What. The. Fuck." Was he all he managed to blurt out.

The prince pulled up the sheets up to his nose and let out a squeak while Ricky just looked at him, took a drag on his cigarette, and raised an eyebrow.

"Ricky who is this man! Is he a vengeful for lover? You said you were single!" The prince protested.

Ricky made placating gestures at the prince. "Nah babe this is just a friend from work, don't sweat it." Ricky turned towards Ahiga. "Kinda' crushing my vibe here brotato salad."

Ahiga recoiled in shock once more.

"Why!? How!?"

Ricky leaped out of bed naked and began to dress as he spoke. "The why is pretty simple; I was horny. The how is that because I was horny, I flirted with a person who I found attractive and they reciprocated so we agreed to have sex. Any questions?"

"Fuck's sake, you know what, were moving on from this topic even though you might have just caused an international incident. I think I found a Crimson Knight member on the ship so get your ass in gear."

Ricky finished buttoning his tuxedo and prepared to leave the room when the Ottoman prince grabbed his hand.

"Wait! Do you think we can text some time?"

Ricky exhaled loudly. "Look, Mustafa, you're a great guy and all but I think our lives are in very different places right now what with you being a prince and me being a BETSA contractor and it just seems like it wouldn't work ya' know?"

Mustafa's face fell. "Oh. Yeah, that makes sense."

"You are still a great guy and everything and you should totes stand up to your father and all that! I don't want this to drag down your self-worth or anything."

Mustafa nodded. "Yeah, I get it, I'm glad your being honest with me about your feelings because you know a lot of guys would drag things out-"

"People are trying to kill you your highness I think we can do the emotional honesty thing later!" Ahiga shouted stomping his feet.

Ricky ran out of the room as Ahiga ran down the hallway and the two rushed towards the dance floor while the Sri Jayan bounded ahead of them on their long-footed legs. Ahiga was momentarily disoriented as he reentered the interior dance floor but quickly picked up the scent of the woman who had checked his card and followed it to the exterior dance floor despite being slowed down by the need to push aside or run around the crush of people. As he dashed out into the outside dance floor and noticed the skinny blonde woman from earlier talking to an elderly tycoon of some sort.

"That's her. That's the crimsonite!" He yelled as he swiftly oriented himself for a lunge.

The blonde woman smiled. "Oh honey, you're much too late."

Blades of bone erupted from her fingertips and before Ahiga could lunge she had already spun around and sliced the throat of the elderly tycoon in front of her and the spinal cord of a younger Turkish oil magnate behind her. Ahiga and the Sri Jayan lunged at the woman, but she leaped into the air inhumanly fast and high and as they passed below her and the yacht erupted into screams she continued her transformation in the air.

Ahiga turned around and planted himself on the ground as quickly as he could while knocking several party guests ass-over-kettle and saw that the woman's muscles were already expanding at a massive rate with her skin splitting at the seams to accommodate them. Curved bone blades the size of bowie knives projected from her fingers and her arms stretched out in length to be more like those of an ape's while her posture became more hunched to accommodate the change. She smiled as her teeth doubled in length and grew jagged while her cheeks split to make her maw stretch from ear-to-ear. Her black eyes still betrayed mirth as she spoke through a mouth dripping crimsonite ichor redder than true blood.

"You should always check behind you."

Ahiga turned to see the Sri Jayan bodyguard leaping in the path of a more muscular crimsonite charging towards him with outstretched arms ending in barbed bone spears. The Sri Jayan gracefully hacked the tips of the bone spears off eliciting a growl of anger from the brute while Ahiga turned to see the crimsonite woman pounce at him even as her body continued to twist into a more quadrupedal form. He was able to jump out of her path, but she grabbed onto the boat railing to stop her momentum and twisted around to kick Ahiga over twenty feet sideways into the pool.

Fuck that hurt. He thought to himself as he descended to the bottom. She's more agile than me, faster too, but I think I'm still stronger. I just need to get her into an enclosed space. Wait, why isn't she in here yet? Oh yeah, they can't swim. Can I use that?

The crimsonite leaped into the pool after him after hesitating for a moment and barely missed the opportunity to crush him against the pool floor as he rolled, crouched, and leaped out of the pool like a rocket landing ungracefully in front of the sushi bar. He turned to see her landing behind him and leaped back far enough to where the lunge of her claws only made five small puncture marks on his stomach as he was thrown through the sushi stand. He expected an immediate attack but noticed the crimsonite distracted for the briefest of moments as her eyes independently followed flying pieces of raw meat before refocusing on him.

She's a predator. He thought to himself before kicking a wad of fugu across the deck and using her split second of disorientation to turn around and seize two of the sushi chef's cooking blades. As she reoriented to face him and raised a paw to strike, he thrusted the blade of an 18-inch slicing knife straight through her palm causing her to hiss in agony before he then used a heavy chopping knife to hack off two of her finger-swords at the base.

She leaped back and crouched as he saw the wounds already beginning to heal and quickly jumped to bring the blade of his cleaver down on her skull only for her to roll to the left. He quickly turned to face her, but she dodged another attack with the cleaver by once again jumping to the side, this time into the interior dance hall. He leapt in to follow her only for her to roll onto her back while he was poised above her and kick him in the abdomen hard enough to send him flying thirty feet into the air where he spun around to land on his feet on the main dance floor directly in front of the cocktail bar.

She was moving on all fours now having completely lost her human skin and taken up a more feline shape with backwards-facing knees and a body of dense muscle and surface cartilage plates.

"You're strong boy, I'll give you that. But an ordinary human trained in Atlas magic would be nothing compared to a crimsonite. And a natural born mag? Well, they'd be a challenge, but the fight's victor is preordained. You are strong, but I am a weapon. It is my job to bring war upon this earth for the Crimson Lord."

Ahiga sniffed contemptuously, ignoring the horrible bruises on his abdomen and the pain in his feet, he noticed the crimsonite continuing to grow in size until she was the able to stare him in the eyes on all fours, and he also noted she moved markedly less fluidly than before.

"Yeah, you're an unnatural born killer alright, but you seem to forget who won when clever humans faced natural-born killers long ago."

He taunted her with a smile, and she growled before launching at him once more. He dodged the swipe of her finger-blades, but she caught him with a strong backhand sending him careening thought the cocktail bar reducing it to splinters and smashing a section of the wall of bottles against his back. He gritted through the pain and rolled out of the way of her second leap causing her to smash against the wall behind the bar and sending an avalanche of bottles tumbling down on her from above while Ahiga grabbed a bottle by the neck and launched it straight down her mouth as she ran forward in a biting attack. As she coughed to try and force the bottle out he ran towards her, slid under her body on the wet wood floor, punched her in the throat from below eliciting a strong crunching sound, and slid out from under her to jump over the bar and back onto the dance floor.

She pounced onto the bar and hacked up pieces of glass mixed with ichor and liquor even she once again hopped high into the air, this time at a higher angle so she could seize the side of a chandelier on the ceiling before attempting to drop atop him only for a strong bolt of wind to knock her across the room where she fell and crushed a glass table beneath her.

Ahiga turned and saw Yekaterina entering the room covered in blood with shallow cuts across her abdomen and arms.

"Fuck, are you alright Yekaterina?"

Yekaterina blinked in surprise at his comment. "Am I alright? I just saved your ass! I should be asking you if you're alright!"

Ahiga winced. "I had it handled."

He turned around as he heard the crimsonite get up and begin to run after him. Yekaterina began to hit it with an intense funnel of wind but the crimsonite dug its claws into the ground and ran crouched low to reduce the effect.

"Fuck shit damnit! I used up most of my qi killing the one that attacked me!" Yekaterina yelled as the wind funnel gradually grew less intense.

Ahiga saw the crimsonite was still inconvenienced and ran forward jumping into Yekaterina's wind blast to give extra strength to a flying kick that he felt smash the beast's face bones and knock his ankle out of socket simultaneously. Both he and the creature were sent sprawling across the dance floor. He quickly locked his ankle back into place despite the pain and briefly thanked the gods that he healed faster than an ordinary human, although the crimsonite was healing even faster than him.

"You…dumbasses…war…is how humans…advance! We are doing the world…a favor!" She spoke around a broken jaw and a partially severed tongue spraying ichor across the floor as facial bones reconstructed themselves.

She stood up and prepared to attack despite her face's ongoing regeneration as Ahiga glanced back to see Yekaterina on the brink of collapsing and knew he was on his own with the crimsonite.

Remember what Jack taught you…breathe. Feel your qi. Make your sprit and flesh selves one.

The crimsonite came at him again attempting to leap above him and come down front-claws-first but he moved forwards and managed to grip her under her arms before he swung her down against the floor hard enough to splinter the wooden boards. He then threw her against the doorway where her back made a cracking sound as it splintered the wooden door frame. Ahiga refused to let her get reoriented and delivered a upwards kick to her jaw which tossed her whole frame into the air before she spun around and managed to land back to her feet in front of the pool only to be knocked backwards again as he tackled her into the water.

Submersion. The water turned pink and scarlet with his blood, the blood of several butchered humans who had ended up in the same place, and her crimson ichor. She hit the floor of the pool hard, and he swiftly gripped his fingers into the tiles below to pull himself against the bottom while his knees held her elbows down. Her claws lacked flexibility and she managed only a few minor cuts on his back and arms as her jagged teeth gnashed. She grew smart to what he was trying to do and swung her legs forward to cut his back, desperately fighting against impending oxygen death.

The struggle continued but eventually her black eyes quit moving and she grew limp and finally stopped kicking just as his vision began to fade out. He was barely able to gather the strength to kick to the surface where he immediately massive gulp of warm night air desperate for oxygen as his head rang with the pain of nearly drowning.

After several breaths he grew cognizant enough to look around and see the ongoing battle aboard the deck. The first thing he saw was the huge crimsonite with the spear arms continuing to clash with the Sri Jayan while several human bodyguards of the Ottoman prince were fighting a losing fight with a crimsonite who looked akin to an 800-pound skinless gorilla with claws and saber teeth. He gathered the strength to pull himself out of the water and just noticed a sleek bipedal crimsonite running at him on clawed feet with bone-sword arms ready to strike when several shots hit it in the side and sent it flying into the pool. It tried to resurface only for a fiery wave to wash over its head and carbonize the meat causing it to sink below for good.

Ahiga lifted his gaze to see Ricky with an Ottoman issue assault rifle and Liban with smoke emerging from his outstretched hands. As he coughed up water, he managed to get a mangled "thanks" out.

"Don't mention it kid. Turns out the Crimson Knights put a lot of their members on the boat by disguising them as escorts. No one thought to check the escorts." Liban shook his head at the lack of professionalism shown by Ottoman security.

"I checked out the prince if you know what I mean baybee!" Ricky said giving Liban an elbow nudge only to receive a smack on the back of the head as a reward.

Ahiga looked over to see the human bodyguards suddenly free from attack as various sharp objects had made their crimsonite attacker look more like a pincushion than a gorilla. Ae-Cha approached the still struggling crimsonite and swung a decorative katana through the air to finally decapitate him. The Sri Jayan meanwhile had hamstrung their attacker and kobold came in from behind and smashed in his head with the swing of a large decorative aluminum art piece he transmuted into titanium at the last minute. The Sri Jayan turned around and ran straight across the water and into the interior of the boat after seeing all the crimsonites dispatched.

Ahiga turned back towards Liban. "Did you ever figure out what nation they hoped to frame for the attack?"

Liban nodded. "They like to talk. They kept on loudly claiming that the Egyptian Worker's Republic had put them up to it while we were fighting so I think it's obvious who they hoped to frame. Hopefully the sultan believes us when we tell him it was just a plot to cause war because another Egypto-Ottoman War would be…unpleasant considering all the relics both nations have. Not to mention fission bombs."

Liban shuddered and Ahiga nodded. That would be nasty. He thought to himself. And based on everything I read it wouldn't have ended well for the Ottoman's, not while the Egyptians have the Ship of Ra.

Ahiga heard the unmistakable footsteps of a Sri Jayan coming back out onto the exterior dance floor and looked up to see they had returned. "The prince is safe. The other surviving party guests and servers are also safe in the below deck although the other guests are…ungrateful towards the…efficacy of your efforts. Regardless of others' opinions however the Ottoman Confederation owes BETSA and the United Commonwealths of America its gratitude."

They bent at the knees while keeping their back ramrod straight and putting their arms straight out to the side. A gesture of respect from Riri!tyr-wa Ahiga assumed.

Liban straightened his back and lifted his chin. "It's our job to prevent the misuse of magic and protect humanity. And trying to start a regional war as part of a pact with a demon lord is a pretty big misuse of magic in my opinion."

Ahiga was still in a state of awe over Liban's stoicism when Ricky cleared his throat loudly to get everyone's attention.

"Excuse me everyone, especially Ahiga, but before we give ourselves congratulatory verbal hand jobs perhaps we should take notice of the fact that Ahiga killed a crimsonite in the pool. A pool holding human bodies. Human bodies now exposed to crimsonite ichor-"

The partially transformed crimsonite of a skinny tech magnate leaped out of the pool and plunged at Ricky with absurdly long teeth ready to bite at his throat before Liban knocked it off course with a flying spiral of flame causing it to fall back into the pool.

"Fuck! Ahiga have you never heard anything about crimsonites! Ichor touches people, people turn into crimsonites!" Liban yelled.

"I thought there was a whole ritual thing involved!" Ahiga protested.

Kobold pulled at his hair. "There's a ritual to make sapient crimsonites you bloody numbskull! You don't need the ritual to make mindless beasts!"

A crimsonite hand smacked the pool deck in front of Ahiga and he stood up and stomped it hard enough to shatter its bones while more crimsonites crawled out of the water all around the pool in various stages of development. Ricky opened fire on them alongside the surviving bodyguards while the Sri Jayan ran around the edge of the deck slicing at limbs before a multijointed arm reached out of the water to pull them in. Yekaterina managed to gently knock a single large crimsonite back into the water, Ae-Cha threw a decorative spear to Ahiga who thrust it through the skull of a large slobbering crimsonite whose muscles had only just begun to outgrow its skin, and kobold threw an abandoned blanket over another fresh crimsonite, transmuted it into lead, and pushed i=the beast back into the pool while it got its claws stuck in the sheet.

There were too many. Injured one's healed and they only grew more powerful the longer they developed. A crimsonite with an enormous horn projecting from its forehead charged at Yekaterina on bulky legs, Ahiga threw the spear and lodged it through the monster's neck just before Liban sent a wave of flame wafting over it. Ricky dropped his now empty assault rifle and picked up a shotgun from a dead human bodyguard before swiftly dispatching a horribly stretched out crimsonite approaching Yekaterina on the floor. Ae-Cha lifted various pieces of glass and surrounded a skinnier crimsonite with a tornado of shards, keeping up the eviscerating whirlwind even as it fell back into the pool. Kobold was able to tap a segment of railing an injured one was leaning on turning it into mercury and causing the predator to fall helplessly into the river below.

We're growing weaker. Ahiga thought to himself. We're running out of our energy, and they just keep mutating. This is all my fault.

He saw the Sri Jayan leap out of the pool and behead a crimsonite threatening Kobold. He saw Ricky shove his shotgun into the mouth of an emerging one and blast off the top of its head. He saw Liban's flame growing weaker, hurting crimsonites but not killing them. He used the katana Ae-Cha had found before to slice the hands off of one threatening Yekaterina while she was unconscious and then sliced off its head.

This is all my fault. I need to fix this. I NEED to fix this. I NEED TO FIX THIS.

He reached out his hands without thinking and time stopped.

He saw everything in slow motion. A crimsonite beginning to enter the interior of the ship, a crimsonite swinging a mantis-like blade down on Kobold, a crimsonite preparing to disarm Ricky with a bite from its powerful jaws, and he saw his arms crackle with power. He felt all his power, he felt it more than he ever felt it before, he saw bolts of lighting, green lightning, pour out from his fingertips. He saw the green lightning rush outwards and bend towards all the crimsonites he saw, he saw their bodies light up and burn from the power within the bolts, as if they could not exist while it did.

It stopped. He blinked and saw the results of his work. Burned crimsonites littered the deck. They did not heal; their charred husks could hardly be called organic anymore. The air smelled like recently plowed soil and budding fruits and growing grass despite the charred flesh all around him. He blinked expecting it all to disappear every time he opened his eyes but it all stayed real. It was all still there.

"What the fuck was that!" Ae-Cha yelled.

The Sri Jayan muttered something to themselves in their language and Liban moved to assist the injured bodyguards. Ricky pulled a damp cigarette out of his pocket and began to walk over to Liban to help while Kobold seemed to still think he was about to die and staid crouched in a ball praying for consolation.

"You can't do that! You're an Atlas! Atlas class mags can't do that! I don't even know what that was!" Ae-Cha continued to yell at Ahiga.

Ahiga opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was blood as he fell to the ground unconscious.

 

[Dab master]

THE TJAO CHRONICLES: Chapter Two


History's Mysteries




​

Emptiness. Void. Ahiga found himself floating in a sea of gray nothingness.

No. He thought to himself. There's…color over there. It's…something. It's moving towards me…or am I moving towards it? Being moved?

His mind remained foggy, the dot of color became a ribbon of light, and the ribbon of light became a serpent. A serpent whose form became clearer and yet seemed to be in a state of flux. Wide scales in a dazzling rainbow of shifting colors, a mane upon its neck that shifted from fur to feathers, four stubby legs that switched between those of a lion, to those of an eagle, to those of a crocodile, long whiskers like a catfish on its snout one moment, and whiskers like a cat the next. A head adorned with horns of lapis lazuli that changed to antlers of gold and back again, and a face like that of a crocodile that seemed…

Kind. He thought to himself looking into eyes colored a solid verdant green. Kind and truthful.

Then the dragon spoke.

Words boomed from the edges of the world and into Ahiga's core reverberating and vibrating. Words were to what this was in the sense that the pile of droppings a lemur uses to mark its territory are words. They were meaning. Not filtered through vibrations in the air but meaning itself. Ahiga could feel that underneath everything was raw meaning like what he was feeling now.

Misbegotten celestial son, human boy. Two species in one. Created with purpose. Yet holding thine own's fate. Choose well two-souled one.

Ahiga's eyes opened, and he shot up out of his hospital bed in shock as the bright lights made his eyes water. He looked around in panic at first not recognizing the people around him. He slowly grasped to put names and faces together.

"Easy kid, you were out for nearly 48 hours." Ahiga looked up to see Liban's comforting smile and felt a little better. "You saved us back there with that…well we don't quite know what you did."

"I mean yeah he saved us but he also kind of caused us to be in danger in the first place, so I mean if you think about it, it kind of evens out." Ricky said with a shrug before Yekaterina smacked him across the back of the head.

Ae-Cha stepped towards him and spoke up. "Ahiga while you have been unconscious, I have consulted various caudexes and tomes on your anomalous ability. I have been able to ascertain that those who are skilled in Atlas class magic, and natural born mags such as yourself, can in fact learn to fire projectiles of their own energy in combat."

Ahiga nodded at Ae-Cha's statement, relieved that he wouldn't become an object of study. I want to earn respect for my actions, not because I'm some…oddity to be studied.

"However, I have found nothing about the specific…let's call it an attack form…you did. Electromancy is of course a well-studied field of magic used by normal humans using spells and inherent mags alike, but it is not connected to Atlas magic. And in any case the post facto examination of the crimsonite corpses suggests that what you did was not electrical in nature. The crimsonites were burned from the inside-out and their essences were…well they weren't. Demonic essence is used to create a crimsonite, ichor is its material manifestation, and it has to be cleaned up using lengthy purification rituals when they die. There was nothing left of it in the ones you killed."

Ahiga blinked in surprise before dropping back down on the bed with a groan.

"Fuck. So, I'm going to be labeled an anomaly now."

Liban nodded. "Hey, it's not as bad as people say it is. Anomalous mags are highly valued in the BETSA. Your rank will stay the same, all that will change is your id."

"That and the fact that Agent Cade has allowed me to call in Dr. Yisrael Rosenthal from the University of Esoteric Studies in New Judah to help study your recently gestated ability. He will accompany our squad on its next mission to take notes." Ae-Cha added.

Ricky dramatically pulled out his phone and began typing. "Alright, I just looked him up and may I just say I approve of finally adding a silver fox to the team."

Yekaterina leaned over Ricky's phone to screen peak. "For once Ricky, I don't think you deserve a smack across the head for that statement because daaammmn."

"Hold on, wait up." Ahiga said sitting back up. "We're going on a mission? Where? When?"

"Up north to Efagsi. There was info that some little-known group wants to steal a powerful artifact from the Gateway City History Museum. The Spear Thrower of Nuuk the Warrior. We have to be there tomorrow before 12PM," Liban said.

Ahiga began to pull himself out of bed despite the slight soreness in his ribs and stood up to face Liban. "Refresh my memory but why would the Spear Thrower of Nuuk the Warrior be dangerous? Like I get why it's precious, but this seems like a job for the Efagsians."

Ae-Cha stepped towards them. "The Spear Thrower of Nuuk is incredibly old and has accrued power through age and legend. It dates back to the days of the Cabotian Civilization that used to inhabit northern Canada and was used in the wars that ended the Age of the Hero Kings 12,000 years ago. No one knows how powerful it would be if used now. We should hope we don't figure out."

Ahiga nodded. "Alright. Now, is anyone hungry? Because I just slept for two days."

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

​

The BETSA facility housed the entire team. Ahiga had heard the set up compared to a fire station. Most BETSA squad left base when a "fire" started somewhere, and between those times they stood alert. Ahiga remembered Jack once saying that in the army 90% of his time was spent killing the time, and the last 10% was killing time. He thought that metaphor apt for BETSA work as he made a sandwich in the community kitchen.

The kitchen faced the common area where Ricky hogged the couch watching something inevitably ignorant. Ahiga walked around the counter to see what looked like a baby duck doing a classic late-night interview with some celebrity on the tv.

"What are you watching?" He asked standing over Ricky.

Yekaterina shooshed him from her armchair. "It's the Baby Duck Hour. It's hilarious."

Ricky sniffed and looked up from his crochet work. "It's art Yekaterina."

"Ok but what's it like…about?" Ahiga continued.

"The Baby Duck interviews the people but is incredibly rude while doing so. It's an exercise in absurdism." Ricky responded.

"Its fun to watch while high." Yekaterina answered before taking a hit from a bong. "Sides' when'd you get all "cultured" Ricky. You spend all your time looking to plow."

"I am a man of many layers Kat. Besides, chicks and dudes alike dig a cultured gentlemen."

"You dropped mustard on your wool tube and shirt." Yekaterina retorted with a giggle.

"Chicks dig mustard stains Kat."

Ahiga sighed and sat down to watch tv with them.

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

​

Ahiga stood in the library that Ae-Cha had largely commandeered since the squad had been formed. He found the space slightly claustrophobic as the already small room was stuffed with well-organized books old and new alongside racks of scrolls.

"Do not be nervous Ahiga, Dr. Rosenthal is an expert in his field." Ae-Cha said as she searched for a scroll.

"I don't like being treated like a lab rat. I just want to move on from this." Ahiga said with a shrug.

"Try to look on the bright side of things. You have a totally new part of yourself to explore, this is something to cherish and learn from, not reject."

Ahiga thought about that. "I mean…it was pretty useful on the boat. And I suppose I will be more capable in combat with a ranged attack form. Still, mags are supposed to be one thing, we do one thing good without having to go through any of the spells or artifacts normal humans need to do magic, that's what makes us what we are. I trained for one thing all my life Ae-Cha. And now I have to learn how to control this whole new ability that no one knows about and its…frustrating because I feel like I'm back to square one. Like all my work just got rebooted." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

Ae-Cha looked at him in the eyes. "I know how it feels to be scared of uncertainty. When I was little growing up in the Ryukyus, back when the Americans still ruled them, the laws around mags were different. The American government forced all mags to be registered so they could be monitored, enrolled in boarding schools, and drafted into the military at age 18. My parents learned I was psionic early on and told me never to show anyone. They said if I did the bad men would take me away from them and force me to fight. After the Great Rampage the Chinese came to the islands, and the rules changed. The new international treaty on using mags in the military was signed and I thought there was less to fear.

My parents, they wanted me to not be restricted in what I could do in life, they thought that being known as a mag would keep me from being able to do normal things. They wanted to protect me even when things changed, but in doing that they made me afraid of what I could do.

Then one day my neighbor was fixing his car when it fell on him. No one could lift it; he was going to die without help. I discovered that I could do things to help people when I lifted that car off of him with my telekinesis. My parents were so afraid of people knowing their daughter was a mag that they fled to Japan and I…I resented them for it. I still do. I went to America when I was 18 to study the esoteric arts, and I decided to join BETSA because I heard they helped people. Don't be afraid of the unknown Ahiga, think about the ways you can help other people and love that you can do something special for the world."

Ahiga nodded wiping the beginnings of a tear from his eye. "Thanks, Ae-Cha. That helps." Ae-Cha smiled at him, he found it comforting.

The door to the library flew open nearly giving Ahiga a heart attack as a seven-foot-tall barrel-chested man with short hair and a long, curly, black beard with streaks of gray entered the room. Dr. Rosenthal had a twinkle in his eye and wore a tweed jacket and brown jeans that seemed too small for his muscular frame. He smiled brightly as he seemed to almost yell his words.

"Ae-Cha! My prize pupil! Is this the young man you were telling me about?"

Ae-Cha nodded, unphased by the loud entrance. "Yes Dr. Rosenthal. This is Ahiga-"

"Well, my boy it seems like you've given me a reason to go to Efagsi to watch you work! I never thought I'd have any reason to travel to that intellectually sterile nation of half-English stiff-lips but here we are! It's not everyday you get to study a spontaneous mag trait generation! Especially of an ability unknown to modern arcanology!"

Ahiga stoked his left braid nervously. "Uh, yes. Happy to help?"

"Don't worry I won't drag your group behind! I can take of myself you see, even if I'm not a mag. I've studied various magics my whole career and I can do a little bit of a lot if you know what I mean." Rosenthal said with a wink.

"Yes?" Ahiga answered tepidly.

"Wonderful! Now, can you show me the anomalous ability here?"

Ahiga stood in thought for a second. "I…don't know how I did it in the first place. It just…happened."

Rosenthal laughed. "Don't worry about that! That's common! Well, it's common in these uncommon cases I should say. New mag abilities usually end up appearing under extreme stress. Think of it kind of like epigenetics except for the soul. The mystical "gene" wasn't expressed until the environmental pressures were correct."

Ahiga nodded again. "Yeah, that makes sense. So, to do it again I just have to be in combat right?"

Rosenthal somehow smiled even more. "You get it! And it looks like you'll be doing that soon."

Liban threw open the door. "Everyone get your shit together, we're leaving for Efagsi in ten minutes."

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

​

Ahiga entered the hangar with Rosenthal and Ae-Cha and saw Kobold working on the helicopter. Kobold looked up and his face lit up with rage.

"Rosenthal you son of a bitch have you come to take another job from me!?"

Rosenthal went red with embarrassment. "Now Kobold, you just gave me the idea for that paper on the interaction of ghosts with tantric magic, you chose to claim-"

"It was my idea! You knew it! You didn't give me credit and when I accused you of plagiarism you got me expelled from the bloody uni-"

Rosenthal spoke up. "I didn't get you expelled, you embarrassed yourself by throwing a fit! I had nothing to do with it!"

"I outta kick your skinny ass Rose! To think I called you a friend!"

"Shut the hell up both of you! If neither of you can work together then I'll kick both of you off this mission! Do you understand?!" Liban shouted sticking his head out of the helicopter window.

Both men nodded sullenly and walked into the helicopter.

Liban moved to face them all. "Alright team we got more news about who's trying to steal the Spear Thrower of Nuuk. It's a white supremacist group called Nordic Storm. They believe the ancient Cabotian civilization was made up of members of a primordial race of Nordics who ruled the entire area around the Artic Circle. It's horseshit but they believe it. And because they believe it they want the Spear Thrower, they hope to awaken the Nordic spirit they believe dwells within and use it to reestablish Hyperborea. Obviously, they are not fond of the First Nations and sasquatch clans who also claim the spear."

"Wait, why do the First Nations and the sasquatch clans claim it?" Kobold asked.

"Because the spear was stolen back and forth over the centuries in ritualized warfare. So, the clans and Nations who claim it filed a joint lawsuit to get co-custody and take it back from the museum. The museum bought it from the "adventurer" Jean Pierre who stole it in 1897 from the Wisselwoot Clan of sasquatches."

Ahiga frowned. He knew the Spear Thrower was stolen but…he felt wrong about keeping it in the hands of people with no right to it, even if he was keeping it away from even worse owners.

Liban noticed. "It's for the courts to decide kid. We can't get involved, normal humans don't trust us, they haven't for 20 years. We need to earn it back by being helpful where we're needed and staying out of their affairs."

Ahiga had heard the speech before. He'd heard it from foster parents, from school, from politicians, in BETSA training. He believed it too. Mags were a small minority, but they'd shown they could be dangerous, and could he begrudge normal humans for wanting reassurance that they wouldn't get involved in their affairs? That a mag would never pull of another Great Ramage?

But we shouldn't have to reassure them twenty years later. When does it end? He tried to shake the intrusive thought out of his head. That way of thinking leads to joining the Guild. Nip it in the bud.

He tried to focus on the scenery below as they passed the vast prairie and began to fly over the taiga. Time rolled on as Yekaterina and Ricky took turns trying to hit on Rosenthal to the man's obvious obliviousness and Kobold seethed in his chair palpably. Then he saw a glitter on the horizon.

Rosenthal leaned next to him. "That's the Northwest Passage. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Ahiga had to admit it was a gorgeous sight, a narrow band of ocean flanked by unending taiga. As they swung east, he saw a large strip of buildings and docks on the horizon.

"Gateway City." Rosenthal said. "A classic construction of 17th​ century architecture turned into suburbs an Get'a'burgers. People say it's progress, I ask them what its progressing towards."

"That's deep dog. Can I steal that for my memoirs?" Ricky asked.

The helicopter flew over office buildings, warehouses, parks, and suburbs before landing on the roof of the museum.

Ricky sniffed. "The place has rancid vibes, but I dig the industrial gothic architecture."

Ahiga assumed that was the word for all the concrete arches and steel goblins. He wasn't impressed.

As they disembarked from the helicopter a portly little white man came running towards them across the roof in distress.

"What are you doing!? The situation is already resolved! Did you not hear the news!? We need you to clear the roof for high class visitors coming for a private tour later today! Go on and get out already!"

Ahiga immediately felt something was off about the man. Ricky walked up and punched at the man to be only for his fist to pass through air and the man to blow away into the wind.

Ae-Cha looked surprised. "How did you know he was a mist apparition Ricky?"

Ricky looked confused and stroked his stubble. "A what?"

"Fuck," Liban said, "I just got word on my earpiece that the terrorists have taken hostages, including some protesters who came to demand the spear thrower back. Looks like we're going to need to do an impromptu rescue."

"None of these kids have done a rescue before!" Kobold blurted out.

"First time for everything." Liban said with a shrug. "Ae-Cha astral project into the building and figure out the best place for Kobold to drop us in."

"On it cap'n." Ae-Cha said just before she sat down and rolled her eyes over in her head until they were white.

Yekaterina grimaced. "Astral projection is gross."

Ae-Cha's body shook, and her pupils rolled back to their normal place. "The best place to drop in is thirty meters southwest of our current position. There's a mechanical maintenance room for the elevators that is unguarded. Kobold, you need to make the hole roughly one meter across and make the drop silent."

Kobold saluted and went to the suggested position. He got down on his knees and put his hands on the ground as the rest of them followed. A perfect circle of roof one meter wide turned into fine dust and crumbled into a dark pit below.

Liban dropped in first as quiet as a mouse. Kobold followed, then Ae-Cha, then Ricky, then Yekaterina, then Ahiga, then Rosenthal. As Ahiga entered the room he blinked several times to adjust his eyes to the darkness, he had greater light sensitivity than non-Atlas mags or normal humans. He was comforted by the fact that that ability was rare, but known, in Atlas mags.

Liban put his ear to the door and looked at Ae-Cha. Her eyes glazed over for a few seconds and when she came back to her body, she gave a thumbs up. Kobold approached the aluminum door and at a touch it turned into fine dust. Ahiga headed out of the room behind Liban and looked around silently seeing an empty hallway of classical art. Liban moved to the stairway at the end of the hallway and looked down before turning his head back to Ahiga and giving a thumbs up.

The group moved down the stairs painstakingly carefully before entering what appeared to be an exhibit based around knights and medieval warfare. A faint footstep came from behind the group. Ahiga sensed he was being watched and spun around as quickly as he could. A pump action shotgun floated in the air behind them and was trained on the back most group member, Rosenthal. A shot rang out.

Rosenthal fell face forward and Ahiga launched himself at the shotgun in a rage only to fly through thin air and into a display case full of daggers. Glass and daggers came down upon him and as he gained his bearings and looked up, he saw the group distracted by a mobile suit of knight's armor attacking them from the front while the shotgun wielder shot at Liban.

Liban staggered back but stayed on his feet thanks to his combat gear. He then launched a fireball at the shotgun, only for the shot to fly through thin air and smash into a wall. Fire alarms and sprinklers went off adding another element of chaos. Ahiga hoisted himself up and quickly noticed the water bending around a human shape. He grabbed a dagger and tossed it into the center of the mass with as much strength as he could and saw it become lodged in thin air.

He ran to the dagger, but it came out of its resting spot with a horrible sound of rending flesh and was tossed at his face. Ahiga dodged the sloppy throw but took a second to notice the shotgun laying on the ground abandoned. He located the area of warped water again and ran towards it. He was prepared to deliver a blow strong enough to kill an ox only to be sent sprawling to the side by a blow from a steel fist to the side of the head.

Ahiga touched his temple to discover blood coming from the side of his head. He looked up to see the animated knight armor being attacked by Ae-Cha using a telekinetically controlled mace to distract it while Kobold tried to sneak around and transmute it. He scanned his eyes across the room trying to find the invisible attacker only to notice a third attacker fighting with Ricky, Liban, and Yekaterina. The attacker looked like a green, humanoid, configuration of mist with four red points of light for eyes and arms ending in curved metallic blades.

Mist warrior. He remembered the name from BETSA training. That's a moderately hard creature to summon and bind. They have good human wizard or summoning mag here then.

He jumped to his feet and noticed Rosenthal was up and showed no sign of having been shot. He was however obviously in duress as his arms pried at an area of air in front of his throat and his face turned reddish-purple. Ahiga ran behind Rosenthal and grabbed at an area where water slid through the air over an invisible surface. He felt what he thought was Kevlar and pulled hard only to hear the sound of unzipping and looked up to see Rosenthal now able to touch his own neck.

Fucker took off the vest. He thought looking at the area of distorted water flow now in front of him. He lunged forward with a low punch, but the figure dodged and tried to sweep his leg. He countered by jumping into the air and tried to bring a fist down on the invisible leg only to crush a tile under his fist. He felt a strong blow, eminently enhanced somehow, strike the back of his head before he rolled and turned back towards the enemy with a roundhouse kick. Once again his leg went flying through the air and he heard footsteps peeling away behind him and turned around to face the shotgun once more.

Rosenthal pulled a revolver out of his pocket and shot at the air right above the shotgun eliciting a grunt of pain and causing the gun to swing sideways and fire into a cabinet filled with gauntlets. Ahiga saw the shotgun lift and fire into Rosenthal again, but the large man only grunted, and the shot gun was dropped to the floor. The figure ran towards a stand of swords with Rosenthal in pursuit. Ahiga ran forward, grabbed the dagger from earlier off the floor, and headed towards the invisible figure who seemed to be warding off Rosenthal with wild swings of a Burgundian knight's sword. Ahiga jumped at the figure who oriented his sword towards him only for Ahiga to knock the sword to the side, breaking his dagger in the process.

Ahiga finally got his hands on the figure, he felt wet human skin only for a jolt of electricity to travel up his side. He was frozen in pain for a second, long enough for the figure to pick him up into the air and swing him down into the ground. He hit the floor hard. Air came out of his lungs, and he rolled to dodge a stomp that shattered tiles while Rosenthal punched at the figure only to be grabbed by the arm and swung against the wall hard enough to collapse a section of drywalling. Ahiga stood up despite the pain in his sides and head and picked up a handful of shattered glass which he crushed further in his left palm. The figure swung at his head, he dodged and smacked his palmful of glass across where he thought the figure's face was.

He finally elicited a scream of pain and saw the figure's thrashing via the wild swinging of water droplets in the air. He reached out, felt what seemed to be a jaw, reached back further with his left hand, and felt wet hair. He twisted the head hard. A solid snap rang out like a green sapling breaking. A person seemed to suddenly blink into existence as a thirty-something man with dark hair bound in a ponytail, destroyed eyes, and copious rune and cross tattoos on the shaved sides of his head fell to the floor dead.

"Fuck." Ahiga wheezed feeling a ringing pain in his head.

The man wore black pants with knee and shoulder pads and had a white shirt with colored square patches sown into it. Ahiga also noticed odd black gloves on his hands. Rosenthal knelt beside the cadaver.

"Invisibility potion, I'm guessing the enhanced strength comes from either extensive Atlas magic training, or potions, he's also got electric stun gloves and a Mahdi-style faith shirt enchanted to turn bullets into water. Heh."

"What's funny about that?" Ahiga asked.

Rosenthal lifted his tweed shirt to show a white shirt with colored patches underneath. "I'm happy to say mine is powered by faith in a different god than their pastiche of a fictional race god." Ahiga smiled before remembering the other events in the room.

He looked up to see the knight dissolving into a puddle of mercury while the mist warrior was still in play, albeit looking smaller with two of its eye-lights missing. Liban hosed it with fire and Yekaterina pushed it from behind with a wind blast while Ricky shot out another eye with an oversized handgun. Ahiga bent down, picked up a dagger, and aimed at the nearest eye. He threw as hard as he could. He missed.

"Practice makes perfect my boy," Rosenthal said before firing with his large silver revolver and scoring a direct hit on the last eye. "Go in peace my gaseous friend. You knew not what evil you were chained to."

The mist warrior dissolved; its blades clattered to the floor. Ahiga walked across the room towards Liban and the others.

"We have to move everyone. The hostages are in the Spear Thrower of Nuuk the Hero exhibit. There's twenty-seven of them and four terrorists." Liban lead the way and they followed.

The team went down a hallway holding artifacts and trophies from Efagsi's colonial past as Britain's route to Asia. Swords from Inuit warriors, whalebone armor, Cree bows, Metis fur caps, shamanic drums, a totem pole, muskets, and a sasquatch scalp. Ahiga felt like throwing up. The area reeked to him. He felt like he couldn't breathe until they entered the exhibit on trade with Asia.

Liban held up his hand. "The Spear Thrower display chamber is up next. The terrorists are claiming over telecommunications that they want to parley. They want us to send one of our people in."

Ahiga stepped forward. "Let me do this Liban."

Liban shook his head. "You have the minimum of training in diplomacy, there is no logical reason to-"

"Please, Liban. I need to do this." Liban looked skeptical, but he also seemed to be thoughtful.

"None of you have much training, Kobold would logically be the best choice, but he's the least diplomatic and the least able to defend himself if things go south."

"I resent that remark!" Kobold responded.

"Ricky is too crass, they won't respect Yekaterina or even fear her, same with Ae-Cha. I'm at the rock bottom of their racial hierarchy, Rosenthal is-"

"A Jew. The thing they hate most in the world." Rosenthal finished for Liban who nodded.

Liban looked back at Ahiga and nodded somberly. "Go. But I don't like this."

Ahiga went. He walked down the hallway and into a large, round, open room. A large statue of Nuuk stood in the center of the room. A bold-faced Native man in a mammoth-skin parka holding his spear thrower high with his right hand and with his left hand atop the head of his legendary pet cave lion.

"Well, well, well. They sent a savage to negotiate." A tall, smooth-shaven, blond man in camouflaged combat gear leapt off the Nuuk statue. Ahiga noticed the Spear Thrower of Nuuk the Hero in his belt.

Ahiga then noticed the hostages in a corner being watched over by a short, skinny, chinless teen with an assault rifle. He noticed a sasquatch among the hostages whose had obviously been hit in the face several times. He turned as he caught the sound of a boot shifting on tile on the upper floor and looked to see a tall, wide, bearded man with a sniper rifle looking down his scope at him from across the railing. He looked directly up at the glass dome functioning as the ceiling of the room and noticed a long, skinny man in tight leather clothes wearing a gas mask and clinging to the ceiling by his fingertips and bare feet.

Four enemies. He thought to himself. I could probably take all these chumps at once if not for the hostages. His eyes swung back to the hostages, and he noticed an elderly man in shamanic garb among the crowd. Their eyes met. He felt the inkling of an idea.

"You hear me boy? You people are never good at listening. You looking at your witch doctor there? You know he says Nuuk was a fucking Indian? Horseshit." The leader spat on the ground and reached behind his back to produce a spear thrower. "Nuuk was a great Nordic king who slayed thousands of Asians, your ancestors, and thousands of those hairy-skinned motherfuckers." He pointed at the sasquatch.

"I'm not here to debate history with you. We want the hostages, and we want the spear thrower. In return you'll get to spend the rest of your life in prison instead of dying here." Ahiga hardened his eyes and stance.

"What the fuck makes you think you can make demands of me you little shit!? I have the goddamn spear thrower of Nuuk! Soon Hyperborea will be restored, and the boreal lands will be inhabited by pure Nordics purged of degeneracy and ready for the return of our future chosen king! People repentant and loyal to Odin-Jehovah!"

Ahiga watched the man reach a high fit of disassociation. He smelled his joy and glanced at the spear thrower before raising an eyebrow.

"Where's your dart?"

The leader looked confused. "What?"

"Where's the spear for the thrower. Do…do you know how an atlatl works?"

The man's face blanched. "It…it'll still work! It's magic!"

Ahiga put his face in his hands and began to laugh hysterically. "Jeeesssusss! You people are fucking stupid! You're evil sure, but you're also fucking dumb. Alright…alright. Tell you what." He turned his head to the teen holding the hostages. "You, hold old are you kid?"

The teen turned red. "I'm sixteen. But I'm still a warrior for the white race!"

"Yeah sure, whatever. What's your chucklefuck leader to you? He talk you into this over the internet or some shit?"

The leader flustered. "Don't talk to him Reginald! You are a warrior! He's using Indian mind tricks on you!"

Reginald turned redder. "He…he taught me the truth!"

Ahiga sighed. "Look kid, I'll cut you some slack now, drop the gun and I'll let you live."

The teen's hands trembled. "I…I have hostages!"

"Yeah, and if you shoot them that'll just piss me off more. Us BETSA agents, well we are allowed a certain margin of error in missions." Ahiga shared the briefest of glances with the shaman who nodded ever so slightly, following what he was doing. "I'll be sad that you killed them, but I've seen it before," the chinless youth swallowed, "but if you do it, well, you'll die. And it won't be a happy or quick death either."

"Don't listen to him Reginald you fucking sissy!" The leader yelled at the young terrorist with a crack of desperation in his voice.

"Kid, I'll tear you apart. No mercy. I'm an Atlas, I broke your super strong friend's neck back there like he was a chump bitch and shit on his corpse for a lark. I'll tear your rib cage open with my bare hands and take a bite out of your kidney in front of your face. Look at my eyes, I'll do it, I'm fucking crazy!"

The teenager soiled his pants and dropped his assault rifle to the ground before crouching into a ball and weeping. "Please don't kill me! Oh god don't kill me! AHHH!!!"

The leader's jaw dropped. "Shoot the Indian bastard Bernard!"

Ahiga whipped his head out of position in a blur and felt a gust of wind pass his face as the sound of a gunshot reverberated through the room. Ahiga whipped his head again to look at the large, beaded man and began to run towards the balcony. The gun failed to move fast enough and Ahiga leaped 15 feet to land on the balcony next to the sniper. The sniper dropped his rifle and reached for a pistol until the top of his head blew off. Ahiga looked down below and across the room to see the sasquatch holding the young terrorist's assault rifle as hostages flowed out of the room through the exit.

Ahiga leaped back down to the ground floor and ran towards the leaders who stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled in a panic. The man in leather hit the floor in front of Ahiga with a solid thud. Ahiga stood in front of what looked like a corpse with its head twisted at a wrong angle before the body sat up ramrod straight and twisted its head back into place. Its right arm rapidly shot out at an unnaturally twisted angle and the hand spun around in a blur before falling to the floor revealing a nozzle on the inside of its wrist.

Ahiga leaped to the side as a spurt of flame shot into the space he once stood in. He ran a wide circle around the creature while the jet of flame from its arm followed close behind. Its other arm twisted the mouth off of its gas mask and a swarm of black insects emerged and began to pursue Ahiga. As they got closer, he saw they were locusts with scorpion tails, hoofs on their feet, and the heads of lions.

He swatted at them, but they were too numerous, stingers found flesh while the lion heads bit him and attacked him with balls of fire from their mouths. His clothes began to smoke, the air smelled of sulfur, and he felt every sting as if it had its own form of agony, one cold, one hot, one like acid.

"Thought you were so fucking smart didn't you asshole! Well savage cunning can never defeat a white man's ingenu-"

The leader stopped talking as several bullets entered his side. The sasquatch leaned against the wall in the corner of the room. Ahiga felt thankful even as the insects continued their assault despite the fact that kept crushing one after another. The flames stopped coming from the creature's open wrist.

The creature walked towards him. "You thought he was in charge?" Its voice sounded like it came from a grainy radio and the accent sounded like German through a funhouse mirror. "I'm in charge. Those degenerates were useful. Now they're not." Several bullets struck the chest of the creature and made a sound like wood being hit with a hammer. "I'll kill you later you later, beast." It said cocking its head to the sasquatch. "As for you young Indian, well it's a waste that you weren't Nordic. You're a better warrior than many in the master race. But now I end your gene line."

The creature reached its intact hand out to Ahiga as needles slid out of its fingertips. Ahiga fell to his knees in pain even as he continued to kill the hell locusts. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the shaman silently walk to the atlatl unnoticed. He saw the team entering the room and all of them moving to attack. He saw the man he thought the terrorist's leader…still breathing. Whispering to himself though bubbles of blood.

"Expendable? Rot in hell you rotten ass puppet." His hands gripped a detonator.

Ahiga held out his hands and closed his eyes. He felt something emanate from him, he opened his eyes a second later to see ruin and wreckage all around him, but he was safe. He looked over and saw the shaman sitting on the floor with the Spear Thrower of Nuuk nowhere to be seen, and he finally noticed the bubble of green light surrounding him and warping out of shape to cover the shaman like an amoeba splitting. He remembered the locusts but looked down to see them on the floor twitching in apparent agony, and across the room their master lay broken and scorched, and still writhing.

Yekaterina slid beside him as the bubble he had created dissolved into nothingness. "Ahiga! Are you all right?"

He shook his head. "I need a doctor, and some damn pain killers."

……………………………………………………………

​

"It's fucked up that the Spear Thrower was destroyed when that psycho blew himself up."

Ahiga nodded at Liban as he sat up in the ambulance. Enchanted anti-venom went into his veins, the nurses had to use special titanium needles to pierce his skin. It had gotten stronger after the explosion.

"Hey, you know you have another new ability now." Rosenthal chimed in. "I'm jealous kid. You really are something special." He smiled then winced as the stitches in his forehead strained.

"Yeah, that green forcefield thing you made, that was incredible. Can't believe you got that shaman in there too. That guy is brave, crazy, but brave." Liban smiled faintly.

"All the hostages got out ok?" Ahiga asked.

"Yeah kid. That sasquatch guy was the only injured one. He was beaten on the face a bit and took some minor shrapnel to the back exiting the room with the baby racist draped over his shoulder. Crazy. That kid was willing to kill him, and he was willing to die to save him. I wouldn't have done it. Maybe I'm a worse man for it, but I won't pretend to be better than I am." Liban shook his head.

Ahiga nodded. A better man. Was I a better man today? He remembered the shaman hiding the Spear Thrower of Nuuk in his cloak just before the Nordics erstwhile leader detonated his suicide vest. He remembered being the first to say it was totally destroyed and telling the cop who wanted to search the shaman that he wouldn't have him harass a traumatized man on his watch.

It helped that they had been in front of news cameras. It helped that there was a lot of debris to sift through in the former Spear Thrower of Nuuk the Hero exhibit. Yeah. I did good today. He thought to himself.

"That fucking puppet…that thing is creepy. I saw them wheel it out of there still screaming even though it had half its body blown off, vowing vengeance or some shit. Ae-Cha called it a limberjack, said it's a soul bonded to a puppet through blood magic. That motherfucker could have served Von Liechtenstein back in the day, that's fucked up to think about. It's bad enough that there's the Nordic Pride guys under Antarctica. But racist, immortal, blood-magic puppets? I hate every word that." Liban shivered.

Rosenthal nodded. "It seems like we fight the same battles over and over. But we have to focus on the good we do. You saved lives with your quick-thinking young Ahiga. Remember that, take pride in it. You earned it."

Liban nodded alongside Rosenthal. "You did good today."

Ahiga smiled, he felt pride in Liban's words despite his pain. He felt swelling in his chest when Liban smiled at him. He then felt a twinge of embarrassment at the feelings rising in him.

Nothing's ever simple. He thought to himself.

"What do you want to do when we get back to base kid?"

Kiss you. Ahiga thought to himself before pushing that thought as far out of his mind as possible.

He thought about something else. "Probably just watch the Baby Duck Hour for a while and chill." He laid back on the ambulance gurney. "Then I'll have to start learning how to control these new abilities" He turned to face Rosenthal. "And maybe start learning to throw knives."

 

[Dab master]

Tjao Chronicles: Chapter Three


Growing Pains




​

Ahiga didn't like the look on Cade's face as he walked into the briefing room. He felt somewhat infantilized as Cade gave them all a look like a disappointed mother from across the semi-circle table.

"The good news is that the media loved you guys in Gateway City. Mostly they thought Ricky and Yekaterina were…photogenic." Cade said with a grimace as Ricky and Yekaterina leaned over Ae-Cha to high-five each other. "The Committee meanwhile…well, they weren't shitting rainbows that you blew up the Spear Thrower of Nuuk the Hero. They wanted disciplinary action. I talked them down from it by pointing out that this is a new group. Defending such a powerful artifact was probably too sensitive for you to handle this early on. For that I apologize."

Ahiga felt offended. The Spear Thrower wasn't even BETSA property! And it didn't get destroyed! Although I probably shouldn't say that last part.

Cade frowned. "I have arranged for you to be assigned a less sensitive mission when one comes down the pipe. For the time being you aren't under official reprimand, but only because I informed the Committee that punishing you after you saved 27 hostages would be a PR disaster. The Efagsians were harder to talk down. They don't want you anywhere near their border ever again." Cade's face warped into what Ahiga thought Cade intended to be a smile. "Of course, when push comes to shove, I doubt they'll turn down a mag squad when they need one. You are all dismissed."

As Ahiga got up Ricky leaned over to whisper something into his ear. "Ooooo you got us in troubbbbble!"

"Shut up Ricky, and why does your breath smell like pinecones?"

Ricky blew on his hand and sniffed curiously. "I blew a lumberjack."

Ahiga narrowed his eyes. "Get the hell out Ricky."

"We're leaving anyways." Ricky said before sitting back down in his chair and crossing his arms. "But I am needlessly contradictory."

"I counted on it." Ahiga said before walking out of the room and locking the glass door behind him leaving only Ricky inside.

"The joke's on you! I always wanted to go to an escape room!" Ricky yelled at Ahiga as he walked down the hallway.

Ahiga headed into the living room area where he saw Liban on the couch checking his phone. Ahiga felt awkward seeing Liban sitting there in shorts and a t-shirt and tugged on the neck of his grey hoodie before veering at a ninety-degree angle into the kitchen and opening the fridge to distract himself.

"God, I have the worst friggin' luck with men." Ahiga nearly exploded in embarrassment thinking his internal monologue had somehow escaped his head before he realized it was Yekaterina's voice.

He looked up to see her sitting on the edge of the sink wearing jeans and a white hoodie the same color as her hair. "Jeez Ahiga what did I say? You aren't one of those people who're embarrassed to talk about sex, are you?"

Ahiga shook his head. "No, I'm cool. It's whatever."

"Cool. Which way do you swing anyways?"

"Uhhhhh." Ahiga struggled to form words.

"Fuck that sounded bad, ignore what I said I'm not going to pry." Yekaterina slapped her forehead as she turned red with embarrassment. "I just say things without thinking sometimes you know?"

Ahiga made placating gestures with his hands. "It's cool it's cool, I'm not offended or anything!" Gods when will this conversation be over? He thought to himself.

"Good. I'm going to go let Ricky loose before he starts trying to escape the meeting room using parkour and breaks the glass."

Ahiga finally breathed out when she left the room.

I'm not afraid of the topic, I just…don't think it's important. I have more important things to think about, there's so many things going on in the world that…that stuff should be the last thing on my mind. I'm a BETSA agent, it's not professional to be distracted.

Ahiga finally looked into the fridge and grabbed a Professor Belcher soda and a box of leftover take-out Dravidian food to reheat. He turned around to see Ricky entering the kitchen with his dress jacket tied around his waist, his undershirt torn in several places, and blood on his hands.

"I went into the air vents. There was a possum. The possum was friendly. The rat was not. The rat is no more."

"Wash your hands, Ricky." Liban said as he walked into the kitchen. "Not in the kitchen sink though, in fact go to the laundry room and hose off with soap before touching anything."

Ricky obeyed with a traumatized look in his eyes.

Liban turned towards Ahiga with a look of confusion on his face. "Wait should we do something about the possum?"

"I'll do it!" Ahiga blurted out.

Liban looked confused. "Do what?"

"Capture and remove the possum!"

Liban smiled. "Oh, that'd be cool because I wouldn't want an exterminator to hurt the little guy."

Ahiga briefly questioned his choices in life, but Liban's smile made him confident in his decisions.

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

Ahiga walked to the edge of the pine stand next to the BETSA housing building while the possum dangled by its tail from his hand. It still insisted on playing dead. Ahiga briefly looked up at the sunset cresting the hills above Sharkville and descending into the ocean below.

The town looked quaint from his position, a small port industrial town that time had forgotten. From here he couldn't see the poverty or social stratification between rich and poor, mag and non-mag, human and non-human, white and not.

He set the possum down. "Go on little guy. You put up a good fight, but you need to be with your fellows in the woods. Find a nice possum gal' and make a bunch of hissing babies." The possum slowly got up, looked at Ahiga, rubbed its face, hissed, and trotted into the pines.

Ahiga took a deep breath of fresh, piny air with a hint of seawater and looked back down at the town below. One of his better foster homes had been in Sharkville, they hadn't tried to push their religion on him or make him pretend like they already had a loving relationship. He had childhood friends here he remembered fondly.

I should look them up. He thought to himself. Maybe one or two of them would like to hang out sometime.

"Ahiga!" He heard Kobold shout. "Rosenthal wants to see you! He also said that I am far more intelligent than him and that Sarah admitted I was the better lover!"

"Alright Kobold I'm coming." He said as he turned around and walked back towards the building.

…………………………………………….

​

Rosenthal sat in the library with a pipe in his mouth and a tome under his nose. "Ah, young Ahiga! I'm afraid this may be the last of our meetings for a while, but I expect it will be a productive one! Tell me my boy, how brushed up are you on your history?"

Ahiga shrugged. "Benedict Arnold was the first Consul of America, Von Lichtenstein was the leader of Nordic Pride, Cabot discovered the Northwest Passage, the Indian Revolution started the Frozen War. The basics."

Rosenthal nodded with a smile and closed his tome before turning it to face Ahiga. "I assume you know what this book is then?"

Ahiga looked down at the gold-colored book nearly 18 inches across in both directions and at least a foot thick. On the front was an engraving of a woman with two wings standing with her six arms outstretched with one of each bearing either a sword, a spear, a mace, an axe, a wrench, or a lyre.

"It's a Celestial Manuscript. That seems more like religion than history though. Hold on wait, you don't think something in there is connected to my abilities, do you?"

"Ah, but I do think that young Ahiga. How much do you know about Cu-Chalim lore?"

"I'm sorry but is this a joke Rosenthal? What next? Are you going to ask me if my ten-times-great grandaddy is Jesus?"

Rosenthal calmly took off his glasses and wiped them with a napkin. "The Celestial Manuscript is generally accurate in regards to the broad strokes of human history before the fall of the Ice Age civilizations. We have found Ent-Elim skulls in the Atacama and Antarctica, some magical artifacts from the Ice Age civilizations do suggest extraterrestrial make, and we know the Sri Jayans crossed the stars so there's no reason to think the so-called Gods of Life couldn't have. And there's no reason to think they couldn't have influenced humanity. The hero kings were said to have been changed by the gods, made into Cu-Chalim. Both the Celestial Manuscript, the histories of the Sub-Kemetians, and the oral lore of the ghouls and night kin claim this to be true. Cu-Chalim were said to have been able to manifest control over magic instinctively just like mags, but unlike mags their control wasn't limited to one field of magic. For instance, the strength accessed by Atlas mags."

Ahiga exhaled and inhaled deeply and closed his eyes as he tried to keep his cool. "The Cu-Chalim are dead. Extinct. I can't be one because they don't exist anymore."

"Ahiga, I understand this may be hard information to process, but the fact is that mags do not gestate multiple unrelated abilities out of nowhere. Not to mention the fact that your…green lightning was not only new, but also not an ability known to modern arcanology. Yes, the Cu-Chalim were supposed to have been wiped out in the Relic Wars and the Flood, but it is utterly improbable that they had no descendants. I am forced to draw conclusions were the evidence leads me, and right now the evidence points me to the improbable conclusion that you have, at the very least, come from a family line of relatively undiluted Cu-Chalim."

"Even if that's true how does it help me!" Ahiga yelled.

"Because we know at least a little bit about how the Cu-Chalim used their magic you ninny!" Rosenthal shouted in exasperation.

Ahiga was taken aback. "Really?"

Rosenthal nodded. "Yes! It's in here," he tapped the Celestial Manuscript, "and If you'll accompany me to the training gym, I'd like to try something."

…………………………………………………

​

"All mag magic is based around personal energy, some call it qi or Ruah, but I prefer to keep it culturally neutral and call it meta-particulate circulation. The energy is part of your soul, it flows through you mirroring your body and being made out of parts reminiscent of physical organs. As above, so below, that kind of thing. Mags access this energy instinctually and change it into new forms, a fireball for a pyromancer, a bolt of electricity for an electromancer, a view into a possible future for a pre-cog. The energy reacts to emotion, the fundamental unit of consciousness. Think of it like muscles reacting to signals from neurons. It is mastered and shaped by emotion into more refined forms. You need to draw upon your energy by shaping your emotions, by mastering them, by summoning them and using them. Think back to the emotion you felt when you brought about the green lightning. What did it feel like?"

Ahiga looked out across the bare concrete room at the steel plate target. Ninety meters away, four inches across, six feet across the ground, how'd I aim on the ship? Did the green lightning have weight? Is it like an arrow, or a bullet?"

"Ahiga! You need to think about the experience! Not the facts."

Ahiga turned to face Rosenthal with a look of confusion and concern. "Wait, are you psionic?"

Rosenthal shook his head. "I should hope not! I'd hate to know what my ex-wife thinks of me. I'm just really good at reading faces, most people betray their emotions through minute facial muscle movements. It's something my grandfather taught me. Now, you need to focus on the task at hand."

Ahiga turned back towards the target. What was I thinking back then? I was afraid…no. More than that. I was afraid that if I didn't fix the situation, that it would be fault if they died. How often do I have that emotion? I think, I think I always feel the need to fix things, like if I don't fix something whatever bad thing happens next will be my fault. So, I just have to convince myself that if I don't destroy that steel plate it'll be my fault? But where's the motivation? Maybe if I don't destroy the steel plate, I'll never control this ability, and any bad thing that happens that I could have prevented will be my fault. Yes, that's it! I have to blast that plate to be strong enough to protect everyone!

He held out his arm and summoned the feeling. He felt power course through him. Nothing happened. Maybe it's a psychological thing, he thought to himself. Maybe I'm having trouble imagining it coming from my arm, wait what's one of the major laws of magic? Symbology! So maybe if I symbolically make my hand more like a weapon…

He twisted his right hand into the shape of a pistol and made as if to use his right thumb as a gun sight. "Get away from my friends pew pew." He whispered under his breath.

Rosenthal sighed. "Please be serious about this Ahi-"

A bolt of vibrating green energy coursed down his arm and rushed out of the tips of his topmost fingers. It made a screeching electronic noise as it tore through the air creating a shockwave of heat before striking the steel plate and burning a hole through the center like a red-hot poker being held up against a piece of pulp paper. Ahiga panicked as the beam continued past the steel plate and into the concrete wall behind. He tried releasing his hand from its gun-like shape to stop the beam and it ceased as soon as he moved his fingers out of position.

"Well fuck me blind and call me sally." Rosenthal whispered. "A finger gun was the trick."

"No, it was only part of it." Ahiga said. "I needed the emotion, but I also needed to trick my brain, hell maybe I needed to trick the universe, into thinking I could do it."

Rosenthal nodded. "Good. Now let's see if we can get a similar effect for your shield."

Ahiga heard the door to the training room swing open violently and turned around to see Kobold with a hateful look in his eye and a bolt-action rifle in his hands. He quickly raised the rifle to his shoulder and aimed it at Rosenthal.

"Now you die you arrogant prick!"

Ahiga acted quickly holding out his hands and engulfing himself and Rosenthal in a bubble of translucent green energy just as Kobold pulled the trigger. Before Ahiga knew it the bullet was suspended in the midst of the forcefield directly in front of Rosenthal. Ahiga looked down and saw his hands clenched in tension, he looked back up at Kobold and thought about offensive action and his shield immediately dissolved into nothing. He crouched to leap on the ginger man and restrain him until he felt Rosenthal's hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down Ahiga! It was just a trick to get you on the defensive!"

"A trick!?" Ahiga yelled. "He used a real ass gun!"

Rosenthal smiled and lifted his turtleneck shirt over his belly to reveal a white shirt with colored geometric patches sewn into it underneath. "My faith shirt. Even if you had failed, I would have been fine."

"Yeah, it's not like I grabbed faith-shirt piercing bullets or anything." Kobold said with an awkward chuckle.

Rosenthal raised a brow. "You…didn't, because those don't exist."

"I know," Kobold replied with a sigh, "I researched extensively."

Ahiga lightly punched Rosenthal in the ribcage. "You tricky asshole!"

Rosenthal smiled down on him and Ahiga hated being reminded that Rosenthal was nearly seven feet tall compared to his measly five-foot one. "Ah, but it worked my boy! Forgive the manipulation! It was for a good cause! You are now on the path to controlling your new skills and now have a groundwork for dealing with any new, new abilities that may pop up! And with that, my job here is done."

"You're leaving?" Kobold said with disappointment tinging his voice.

"Yes, my old friend, I need to file a report on this whole affair for the Bureau. But I expect that they may want me back here soon enough for some other remarkable occurrence. Until then," Rosenthal turned his head back towards Ahiga, "I expect Ae-Cha can help you with your investigation into wielding your abilities. You will do great things young Ahiga, of that, I am absolutely certain."

Ahiga nodded. "I won't let you down Rosenthal."

Rosenthal smiled wider. "Please my boy, my friends call me Rose."

……………………………………………

​

Cade walked in front of the room once more. Ahiga smelled a hint of glee about the man, glee curdled with anxiety.

"Ciudad de los Gigantes is a beautiful city don't you all agree? I sure hope you do because that's where you're going next." Cade threw a stack of papers down on the meeting room table. "There's been mysterious activity in the tunnels under the city lately. People disappearing into drains, mysterious figures coming out of manholes, reports of shapeshifters in homeless camps, security camera footage of police being handed wads of cash before leaving suspicious areas. We think there might be a flesh market active in the city."

Ahiga's stomach flopped. There were lots of magics that benefited from human parts. It was a great taboo to buy and sell them, but it didn't stop the worst of the worst from doing it. Parts stolen from morgues or medical centers were one thing, parts taken from kidnapped people were on a whole other level of bad. That went so far beyond the pale that even the Guild forbid it.

"You all are to look around, find the missing people, and bring the perpetrators to justice. Thankfully there's nothing valuable in the area for you to blow up." Cade looked at Ahiga who felt like folding up into himself. "Get to it, don't piss the locals off." Cade said before pulling out his flip phone and walking out of the room in a hurry.

"Anyone else get the vibe that Cade wasn't breast fed as a child?" Ricky said before Liban calmly rolled up a magazine and smacked him across the back of the head.

Liban walked to where Cade had been standing "Let's get to work everyone."

………………………………………………………

​

The helicopter flew over endless suburbs. Ahiga thought the sprawling city below was ugly. All brown brush, grey concrete, and black asphalt. The only green was watered lawns and palm fronds.

"Alright everyone," Liban said over their headsets, "we don't know how to access the tunnels so I'm splitting us into search groups. Me and Ae-Cha will search in the abandoned homeless camp near the juncture of the river and the main drainage system. Ricky and Kobold will investigate downriver where there's been a shapeshifter sighting, Yekaterina and Ahiga will be in the midriver where Highway 47 passes over. Everyone clear on their roles?" Everyone nodded. "Good. Then we'll drop off Ricky and Kobold first."

The helicopter landed in a deserted area where the river looked like a real river with vegetation, albeit still filled with plastic garbage. Ricky and Kobold jumped out and headed into the weeds as the helicopter took off once more. They flew a few more miles before landing in an area of bare concrete.

"This is your stop Ahiga and Kat." Ae-Cha said over the intercom. "Be safe down there. We don't know what's going on and you need to be prepared for extreme danger."

Yekaterina and Ahiga nodded and leaped out of the helicopter onto the bed of the concrete river below. As soon as they touched the ground the helicopter took off once more.

"This place reeks." Yekaterina said pinching her nose.

"You're telling me," Ahiga responded as he looked around, "I've never talked about it before, but I have an enhanced sense of smell."

Yekaterina looked at him incredulously. "Do you shit rainbows and piss hot chocolate too?"

"Only on Mondays." He responded curtly.

He looked around once more as anxiety gripped him. He disliked their strategic position. The Ciudad de los Gigantes River in this area was a concrete trench filled with water only intermittently and filled with trash always. A muddy trickle now ran down the center of the so-called river while all around him weeds, trash bags, shopping carts, food wrappers, and other debris piled up and was picked over by crows, stray dogs, and seagulls. He spotted one stripped-down car, three busted bicycles, and several tattered tents whose inhabitants seemed to look at them with suspicion.

Can't say I blame them. If we were cops, we'd be here to beat and evict them.

His muscles tensed as he remembered it wouldn't take a lot of money for someone to convince people with very little to tell you if they had seen anybody snooping around your elicit operation. He also briefly worried about being confronted by mundane gangs in the area which would both blow their cover and be annoying. He ultimately decided that such a thing was best not dwelled upon when they could face real danger.

They walked for another mile before coming to the overpass, Ahiga smelt something dead and glanced over to see a chupacabra in a corner feeding on a large rat. The reptilian-simian creature hissed at him before a bearded black man put his hand on its spines and soothed them down. The creature purred and thumped its kangaroo-like feet against the ground in joy.

"Don't mind my little buddy Sirabro here, he's all hiss no bite." The man smiled and Ahiga glanced down at his black pants and leather jacket. Something felt off about the man's vibe, he carried himself like he expected combat at a moment's notice, like a warrior.

"Y'all here for the party?" The scruffy man asked.

"You know it." Yekaterina answered.

Ahiga glanced at her for just a moment. She snorted at him and turned back towards the man with the chupacabra.

"He's a bit of a stick in the mud," she put her arm around his shoulder, "ain't that right honey?"

Ahiga suppressed a sigh, "eh. It was your idea not mine. I'm just going with the flow." He tried to look relaxed but felt somewhat awkward with Yekaterina's arm around his shoulder.

The man looked them up and down and Ahiga was suddenly conscious of every part of his looks. His work boots, his jeans, his blue t-shirt, his favorite jean jacket, his twin braids, and his turquoise and silver necklace. Yekaterina was dressed more casually in the same white hoodie and jeans from earlier and shifted on her feet with an annoyed look on her face.

"Well? Are you going to let us in or what?" She crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.

"What's the password?" The man asked.

Ahiga felt a tingling at the back of his skull.

Ahiga, this is Ae-Cha, we bribed a guard to get access to another entrance ahead. The password is "blossom".

Thank you, Ae-Cha. Ahiga thought as the tingling receded. He looked the man in the eyes and repeated the password.

"Hm. Yeah that's right." The man turned around with an air of disbelief and touched an area of the concrete side of the riverbed in a deliberate spiral pattern causing a section of the wall to slide to the side and reveal an entrance to a set of stairs plunging into the earth below. "You can go on through." He said with tenseness in his voice.

Yekaterina grabbed Ahiga's hand, and they walked him into the tunnel and down the stairs. The concrete doorway slid closed behind them and Ahiga's heart briefly leaped out of his chest before he saw the glowing directions on the wall urging them to walk deeper into the interior and watch their step.

He turned to Yekaterina. "You can let go of my hand now."

"Oh yeah, sorry I forgot." She blushed as she pulled her hand into her pocket.

Ahiga began to hear a rhythmic thumping coming from below. His curiosity peaked, he listened intently as the thumping became louder and he began to hear, and smell, a large number of people below. Sweat pooled on his forehead and the back of his neck as the thumping grew louder and louder and the voices of the people became a background noise rather than a whisper.

The pheromones he was picking up suggested anxiety, fear, arousal, excitement, and myriad other emotions that seemed nonsensical grouped together. Finally, the stairway sharply turned and and ended at a tunnel that was level and pointed straight forwards. He noticed a purple light at the end and saw humanoid silhouettes moving against the light in a separate tunnel that theirs seemed to merge into.

He turned towards Yekaterina, "want to take the plunge?"

She nodded, "fuck it, let's go in."

They moved down the tunnel and soon faced the edge of a milling crowd moving inexorably towards some destination. People conversed, some had peeled off into the mouth of the tunnel they were exiting to smoke drugs or make out with partners. Ahiga nearly tripped over the leg of a slim Hispanic man passionately entangled with a yellow Sri Jayan of indeterminate gender.

He reached out his hand to Yekaterina as they reached the edge of the moving crowd. "So we don't get separated." He explained.

"Right," she replied grasping his hand as they joined the avalanche of people.

He jostled elbows with a blonde, white woman with dreads, bumped into a pale-skinned, orange-eyed night kin man who briefly barred his fangs at him, and was nearly tripped by a Hawaiian human woman with large hips. Yekaterina cursed at a large Sri Jayan supermale with large antlers who stepped on her feet with his bare talons without noticing. She was then squished against Ahiga by a short, round, white woman who proceeded to profusely apologize and touch her hair before the current of the crowd pulled them apart.

Ahiga looked up to see the tunnel pouring into what looked like another entrance with words painted above the exit.

PARTY HARDY BROS AND HO'S

​

Ahiga and Yekaterina were suddenly released from the pressing crowd of the tunnel into a wider space and Ahiga looked around to survey his surroundings. A large, round, antechamber carved into rough, grey stone with a roof around 12 feet in height stretched forward into the distance. Christmas lights were strung across the roof, more art in glowing paint stretched across the roof and walls, and a hundred meters before them there was a raised podium where an albino black man with dreads sat in a DJ chair flanked by huge stereos blasting metallic industrial rap.

"What the shit? It's a party!?" He exclaimed.

"Ah no friggin' way dude this isn't just a party! This is an underground lizard party!" Yekaterina looked down at him and beamed.

"What? I thought those were an urban myth!" Ahiga replied.

"Nah man, they're real, but I've never been to a real one before. Oh shit! That's probably the whole mystery behind this tunnel situation! It's just the lizard party! Man, we should celebrate by getting wrecked!"

Ahiga shook his head. "We need to stay on task and stay professional."

Yekaterina frowned. "Why. Are. You. So. LAME!"

Ahiga narrowed his eyes. "I take my job seriously and have self-respect for myself as a BETSA agent. We are the Bureau of Extraterrestrial and Supernatural Affairs, not the Bureau of Getting Sloshed at Work."

"Uuugh! That sounds like a better bureau! You know you just want to feel like a big serious man who people take seriously. Look Ahiga, I've been there, done that. I tried to be a big, serious man. I got tired of that and now I'm a fun, awesome girl with great hair and it's a vastly superior experience. You know what, think about it this way. If we don't party, we'll be suspicious! We have to party to do our job Ahiga!"

Ahiga thought about it. "You somehow made a valid point but that doesn't mean we can get high or sloshed."

Yekaterina narrowed her eyes at him. "It doesn't mean we can get too high or too sloshed."

Ahiga grumbled, "no more than a little buzzed and a teensy bit high."

Yekaterina considered. "Deal. I guess you aren't a total buzzkill after all Ahiga."

"I fear what that compliment implies about me." He replied.

They walked towards a bar near the edge of the stone antechamber and Ahiga tried to keep his ears peeled for suspicious conversation. He only heard snippets of typical party chatter. He wasn't paying attention to his physical surroundings and walked into an occupied red couch near the bar. A large, green, muscle-bound reptilian wearing nothing but jeans stood up from the couch where he had been canoodling with a tall night kin woman.

"Got a problem little sapien?" The reptilian said through bared, needle-like teeth.

"I just wasn't looking where I was going, I'm not looking for trouble." Ahiga said holding up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Yeah, that's what your kind always say! Then before you know it, you've taken every last grain of sand on the planet for yourselves and forced everyone else to obey your rules like it was your world to begin with!"

Ahiga clenched his fist and thought about how to best take the reptilian down, he didn't want to, but he would if he had to. Suddenly the night kin woman behind them on the couch started laughing and grabbed the reptilian's hand.

"Sit down Req! You're too drunk to fight. You might really hurt the squishy human." She looked at him with eyes as yellow as a cat's set in an angular pale face framed by jet-black hair.

I know her from somewhere. Ahiga thought to himself, but he couldn't put a name to the face no matter how hard he tried however.

"Excuse my idiot friend here sir, listen to him talk and you'd think he was there when humans burned Vel'qaaq'vov five hundred years ago. He just needs to lie down." She stood up and faced the reptilian, Ahiga saw she was just as tall as her male friend and watched as cat-like claws came out from her fingertips as she put her hands on his shoulders. "Isn't that right, Req?"

Req gulped. "Yeah, sorry about that little human." They walked away and as they went Ahiga couldn't shake an uncanny feeling about the encounter.

He finally headed towards the bar as he lost sight of the couple in the crowd. As he reached the bar, he saw Yekaterina was talking with the short, curvy, white woman from earlier and both seemed to be engaged in a competitive blushing contest. Ahiga sat down next to her and summoned the red Sri Jayan barkeeper who wore a long blue kilt and a strip of blue cloth around their chest.

"Two beers please, light beers. For me and my…friend here." The Sri Jayan nodded and tapped their small horns and the lid of their closed third eye in a gesture of respect before heading off.

Ahiga turned towards Yekaterina. "Got a minute…Alice?"

Yekaterina turned towards him, "just a second." She typed something into the short woman's phone and the woman walked off with a giggle before Yekaterina turned back to Ahiga. "What's up dude?"

"Something's fishy about this place Kat. Are you familiar with any famous night kin women who are really tall, have straight black hair, and yellow eyes?"

Yekaterina blinked. "Are you pulling my leg? You're describing," she leaned in to whisper in his ear, "Veronica the Vivisector. High level Guild warrior. She's killed hundreds of BETSA agents!"

"Holy shit we can't let her get away then!" Ahiga jumped out of his chair before Yekaterina grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around, and leaned in to whisper again.

"Are you fucking nuts!? She'd drop you in a heartbeat! You're an Atlas mag who has some freaky anomalous powers you can't control, she's a two-hundred-year-old warrior! You may punch real good and she may not be a mag, but she has a hell of a lot of accumulated knowledge! Not to mention she's a night kin!"

"Ok so we round up everyone!" Ahiga retorted in a whisper.

"Absolutely not! I'm an aeromancer, Liban's a pyromancer, Kobold's an alchemist, Ae-Cha's a psychic, and no one knows what Ricky does! None of us are above a four on the classification scale! She's killed bigger groups of stronger people who had more experience! Fuck man, she was in the Second Great War and fought Von Lichtenstein himself!"

Ahiga looked at the floor and felt a sinking feeling of defeat. "Well then we still need to gather intel about whatever fucked up shit this place is up to."

Yekaterina nodded. "Agreed. We need to get in touch with the other groups."

"What's up bitches?" Ahiga turned to see Ricky approaching the bar with his arm over the shoulder of a female reptilian in a purple crop-top and glowing orange short shorts.

"These your friends Crashy?" She said turning to face Ricky.

"Yeah, babe their cool." Ricky nodded at Yekaterina and Ahiga.

"Ricky, we need to gather up everyone. Now." Ahiga said curtly.

Ricky nodded. "I'll tell Liban and the others. I spotted Kobold around the fight pit and Ae-Cha and Liban were hanging out at the other bars."

"You have a big crew Crashy." The reptilian woman said.

"Yeah, unfortunately this is kind of a private affair you know?"

She nodded, "yeah I'm cool. You have my number if you ever want to get down and scaly again." The reptilian walked away while rocking her hips at Ricky as the man watched her go.

Ricky turned back towards them. "What's going on gang?"

Ahiga leaned in to whisper into his ear. "This place has high level Guild members as guests. I somehow doubt they are totally naïve to who their patrons are, but we can't do anything until we gather solid intel."

"Alright follow me." Ricky said before he turned around and proceeded to zip through the crowd. Ahiga was momentarily surprised at how seriously Ricky seemed to be taking the situation and struggled to keep up with him.

They weaved through crushing crowds of people dancing to the beat of the music. Tables were laid out for people to snort cocaine and jackalope antler off of. Ahiga assumed there had to be some kind of ventilation system for the place to keep everyone from suffocating or choking to death on all the pot smoke in the air. They reached an area circled by a large knot of people who Ricky began pushing aside before seizing a familiar ginger man and forcibly pulling him out of the crowd.

"What the bloody hell Ricky! I have money on Rex the Destroyer crumping Strong Johnny in the fight pit!" Kobold's exclaimed as his face turned red with rage.

"We got important business. We need to link up with the boss man and the others."

Kobold sighed and nodded as they followed Ricky's lead into the depths of the party once more. They passed circles of couches occupied by cuddling couple and throuples, a circle of people around a one-meter-deep pit in the ground watching fire sprites shaped like large beetles battle, and people cheering at what appeared to be an impromptu fight between a large muscular human woman and a small night kin woman.

Ahiga spotted the other bar and looked for Liban or Ae-Cha but failed to spot them. Finally, Yekaterina tapped his shoulder and pointed to Liban who seemed to be in the midst of a conversation with a giggling woman at the bar. Ahiga walked forward despite feeling like he'd just been punched in the gut.

"Liban! We need to talk." Liban turned towards Ahiga with a smile on his face that turned into a frown when he saw Ahiga's facial expression.

"Alright," he turned back towards the brunette with glasses he had been talking to, "sorry Rachel I have to deal with some private business. I hope we can talk again some time." The woman nodded and walked off as Liban got down from his chair and lowered his voice. "What is it? Are they kidnapping people from this place?"

Ahiga shook his head. "We don't know. What we do know is that there are suspicious people here and we need to investigate." Ahiga tried his best to keep his voice flat.

I'm an idiot for being upset. He's my boss, it was stupid to have any feelings about him. He has no obligation to feelings even I'm not sure of. I probably didn't even like him, it was my brain confusing things is all. I was just…impressed with him. I need to keep my head in the game. Ahiga mentally nodded to himself and shoved his feelings of disappointment deep down.

"Alright, I'll get Ae-Cha. She was watching the third bar up near the back of the chamber." Liban took off and everyone else followed as they once again pushed and weaved through the crowd.

"Why do the reptilians throw these parties?" Kobold half-whispered to himself.

"It's a way of mourning to an extent. Back when the reptilians had their own homeland, they held enormous parties each year to honor the God of the Forest Wx'zed. Now they throw these parties outside their homeland on the same date. The underground part is because the Spaniards forced the parties literally underground during the colonial days and the Empire of Brazil and the Gran Colombians weren't much friendlier. And as time went on necessity became tradition." Yekaterina said.

Ahiga couldn't help but catch a hint of sadness in her voice and briefly wondered why. He was soon distracted as he spotted Ae-Cha at the bar looking profoundly uncomfortable while she stared down at her drink.

Ricky walked up to her. "Ae-Cha we need to talk."

She sighed in what sounded like relief. "Thank god. Are we leaving? I didn't want to say it earlier but I'm a bit claustrophobic."

Liban shook his head and gestured for her to follow him and the others towards a stretch of wall with few people lingering around. "Let Ahiga explain." Liban said.

Ahiga spoke up. "Me and Kat are pretty sure Veronica the Vivisector was, or is, here."

Kobold crossed himself. "Christ almighty boy are you trying to give us a heart attack!?" He whisper-yelled.

Liban gestured for Kobold to lower his volume. "How sure about this are you Ahiga."

"Not terribly sure, but the description matched up and the night kin woman I spotted acted very strangely, like she found me suspicious."

Liban shook his head. "That's not good. I think we need to leave and call in to the big bosses. This is all too big for just us."

Everyone else gave some measure of agreement. Ahiga was reluctant. We can't just give up, I'm strong, and together we could probably take down one night kin who isn't even a mag. I mean, come one, she'd have to use spells and artifacts for her magic. Doesn't matter how skilled she is, we have an advantage. Then again…it probably isn't just her. Fuck. We probably do need to retreat.

Ahiga felt bitter as they began to walk away past one of the bars and towards the exit. Suddenly Ahiga felt a tingle up his spine and felt horribly like something was wrong. Ahiga stopped and tapped Liban on the back. Liban turned around and gave him a curious look.

Ahiga lowered his voice. "Something's off. I think we're about to be attacked."

A strange voice from behind suddenly interrupted them. "Ahem! Gentlemen and gentleladies if you would be so kind as to give me a moment of your attention."

Ahiga turned around to face the strange voice. A man in a knee-length trench coat stood behind the group with the reptilian man from earlier standing behind him. The reptilian stared at Ahiga with crossed arms. He began to growl but the stranger held up his hand and gestured for him the stop. The stranger grinned revealing teeth as white as snow, the same color as his neck length hair that contrasted with his tan skin and purple eyes. He was tall, lanky, and seemed to carry himself with utter ease and confidence as he faced the group and took a step towards them.

"Forgive me for the interruption my friends, but my associate here," he gestured to the muscular reptilian, "reported that y'all was actin' mighty suspicious earlier and I'd just like to clear the air. You see this here is an…accepting sort of joint and I am hired to make sure it remains that way and the atmosphere we have established is not sullied by those who would seek to poke the unwanted blood hound nose of the law into our affairs."

Ahiga felt danger waft off the man, at the same time he felt like a sense of ease was trying to crush his alertness like a tidal wave. He averted his gaze from the man's eyes which seemed to want to suck away his suspicion like a vortex.

Ricky laughed and slapped Ahiga and Liban on the back. "There's no problem here man! We're just here for the party, you can ask Te'ret, she's a chick I was hooking up with earlier. Hell, ask about my tall dark and handsome friend here and my tall light and ethereal gal pal over there and you'll hear that both of them were trying to get some action tonight. Our little, short pal here," Ricky patted Ahiga on the back, "is just uptight. He spent a good part of his childhood in protestant foster homes and has some hang ups about having fun is all. He's not a narc though. Trust me, I've seen him lie to the police and help an old man steal shit worth lots of hard cash."

Ahiga blanched. How the fuck does Ricky know about that!?

The stranger grinned. "You may be right my Latin friend." He turned to walk away before stopping and half-turning around, "just one question for you."

"Shit it out already." Ricky beckoned.

"Don't I know you from the news?"

Ahiga's heart stopped, and he began to run down how to disable or kill the stranger in a heartbeat.

"What do all tall, sexy, awesome Hispanic men look the same to you? Don't be a southern stereotype man!"

The stranger chuckled, "perhaps I am mistaken." He turned around again before suddenly stopping yet another time. "One last thing though."

Ricky sighed deeply. "What?"

"I can stand a lot of vices. But I hate liars."

The man stuck his arm out behind him and in less than half-a-second a sword-like blade stretched out and made sickening sound as it passed through Ricky's chest and out his back. The blade snapped back up his sleeve as the man turned around and smiled at the group. Ricky slumped to the floor gushing blood from his heart.

"Now we tango ladies and gentlemen." The stranger said with a grin.

Yekaterina recovered from shock first. "I"LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" She yelled before holding out her hands and blasting the man with a hurricane force wind.

His reptilian ally flew backwards across the floor along with many bottles, tables, chairs, and some other patrons who were already fleeing the scene screaming. The stranger however stood his ground as hooks ejected from his boots and gripped the stone floor.

Liban yelled in rage and shot out a torrent of uncontrolled flame, but the stranger then released his grip on the floor and allowed Yekaterina's wind to carry him ahead of Liban's flame before a hook on a steel cable burst from under his coat and grabbed the ceiling. He swung himself out of the path of Yekterina's wind blast and landed on the ground with an audible grunt of pain.

"Nice try honey, but you'll have to do better than that when fighting Sebastian Blades."

Ahiga screamed in incoherent rage and leaped at the man but was knocked out of his course by the large reptilian. He soon found himself smashed against the ground with the reptilian pinning both his arms down with his clawed fingers that pierced his skin.

"I knew you were suspicious! Who do you work for!? The cops!? BETSA!?" Req yelled at Ahiga who screamed nonsense at the reptilian in response. Ahiga then lifted his legs to grab Req from behind before tossing him across the floor.

The reptile landed on all fours and hissed at Ahiga before running at him on his hands and feet with needle teeth barred.

"Get out of my way!" Ahiga yelled before catching the lizard man across the jaw with a right hook sending him sprawling across the floor separated from several of his teeth.

Ahiga stepped forward to finish the crouching reptilian off before feeling a pain on his stomach and looking down to see five shallow bloody gashes across his abdomen. The reptilian chuckled as he picked himself up off the floor and wiped blood from his mouth.

"You think I'm a lightweight little man? I may not be on Blades's level, but I've been fighting humans since before the Spaniards reached the Americas."

Ahiga growled and jumped at the other man only to be grabbed around the ankle by Req's tail and smashed against the floor. Ahiga felt one of his ribs crack and his vision went blurry for a second as his mouth filled with blood form his teeth cutting the inside of his cheek. The hulking reptile stood up and grabbed a glass bottle of the floor that he smashed across the left side of Ahiga's face while he struggled to get up. Ahiga looked back up at Req with a look of pure malice that made the reptilian briefly recoil as Ahiga pounced forward once more. Ahiga delivered an upward punch to the other man's stomach lifting his entire body into the air and tossing him over a dozen feet upwards where his scaly back impacted against the roof before he fell back to the ground.

"Fuck!" Req spat out along with a wad of congealed blood and spit as he lifted himself from the ground.

Ahiga kicked him hard across the face sending him sprawling to the side again. Req reached out and grabbed a chair that he threw at Ahiga who smashed it into splinters with a punch hard enough to bloody his own knuckles. The reptilian got to his feet and put his fist in front of him before lunging at Ahiga with a flurry of punches and slashes from his claws.

They traded rapid strikes with Ahiga pelting Req's ribs repeatedly and blocking dozens of strikes only to still find his shoulders and arms covered with shallow cuts from Req's razor-sharp claws. The lizard man delivered a scratch across Ahiga's jaw, Ahiga punched him hard enough in the side to crack a rib, Ahiga's nose was bloodied, Req's right eye was blacked, Ahiga got cut across the side of his left cheek, finally Ahiga delivered a mighty strike against the center of his opponent's chest. Req was knocked back and fell to the ground clutching his chest and gasping for breath.

Ahiga lifted his hand prepared to deliver the strongest strike he could, but the reptilian looked up at him and Ahiga saw something…familiar in his eyes. Sorrow. Helplessness. A profound sense of loss. He felt unable to strike the man, but as he saw Req's muscles clench for a strike to take advantage of his hesitation, he struck him across the head. He softened his blow causing the reptilian to crumple to the ground unconscious, but alive.

Ahiga turned around to look at the fight between Blades and the others and study his other enemies' moves.

He saw Blades's trench coat in burnt tatters clinging to his body and revealing a vest covered in various bladed weapons underneath. Blades had a large sawblade strapped to his left arm and a sword blade attached to his right arm and used his sawblade to block a fireball from Liban and his arm-sword to block a chair telekinetically thrown by Ae-Cha. Ahiga saw Ae-Cha, Kobold, and Liban all had cuts on their bodies of varying severity. Liban looked the worse with a deep cut above his right eye obscuring his vision with a torrent of blood and the pinky finger of his left hand having been severed and the wound self-cauterized.

Ae-Cha sent a storm of debris at the man, he deftly dodged and diced tables, chairs, and various bottles but was caught with several blows when Ae-Cha suddenly reversed the flow of the storm catching him in the back with a chair hard enough to smash the bar stool and striking him on the back of the head with a bottle and a loose rock hard enough to smash a normal human's skull. Ae-Cha tried raising Blades into the air, but his boots gripped the ground once more and he let out a chuckle.

"Seems like the small ones in your posse have the most bite. Unfortunately for y'all Blades always hits his mark." His left eye then unfolded revealing mechanical parts underneath as a tube projected from what had been his pupil before firing a single dart at Ae-Cha.

Ae-Cha pinned the dart to the floor, but Blades used the moment of distraction to release himself from the ground and leap out of the path of a man-sized tornado of fire Liban sent spiraling his way. The tornado burned his right shoulder eliciting a grunt of pain from Blades and Ahiga took the opportunity to attack, jumping at the man and hoping to catch him in midair.

Blades's reaction time was too fast and Ahiga was sent flying away from him by a strong punch to his jaw. He smashed through a circle of couches sending furniture flying in every direction and sliding across the rough stone floor corroding the skin on his back. Ahiga wasted no time as he stood up even in dire pain and struggled to catch his breath.

He looked up to see Kobold turning a ninja star tossed his way into mercury and Yekaterina trying a new tactic as she pulled the air from Blades's lungs causing the man to crumple to the ground.

"I'm going to kill you for what you did to Ricky you monster!" Yekaterina screamed as she tugged harder at the air causing Blades's face to become purple and swollen.

Blades still managed a grin as his hook flew out from his shirt once more, this time aimed at Yekaterina to force her to divert her focus. Ae-Cha interrupted his plan as she sent the hook flying into the ceiling with a tug of psychic force allowing Yekaterina to continue suffocating Blades. As Ae-Cha's attention was diverted the eye needle lifted off the ground and struck the psionic woman in the knee. Ae-Cha rapidly seized up and crumpled to the ground as her muscles all tensed at once. Yekaterina dropped her focus from Blades who inhaled deeply as Yekaterina ran to Ae-Cha's side in a state of shock.

"You should be honored little lady." Blades said as he casually dodged a spout of flame from Liban and jumped over a crack in the earth sent his way by Kobold, "I only use my special eye when I feel threatened. That paralytic ain't cheap."

Liban roared in rage. "I'm going to burn that grin off your face!"

He sent forth another, larger, wave of fire and Blades was engulfed from the front as he held up his hands and the flames covered him totally. Liban yelled in fury and only ceased the unending wave after several seconds as he grew obviously exhausted.

The retreat of the flame revealed a dome of blades where Blades had been standing. As they dispersed, he stood up from underneath them with singes on his hair and a look of annoyance on his face.

"You lack finesse my friend. Of all your comrades you have the least creativity."

He then tossed his sawblade at Liban, it spun through the air at him in a blur. Liban summoned the strength to knock it off course with an arrow of flame, but it flew back through the air at an angle as it reoriented to strike at Liban once more. Kobold leapt forth and smacked the blade turning it into a cloud of dust before he fell to the ground in exhaustion.

Blades's frown deepened. "I hate to win through attrition, but it looks like that's the way it's going to-" Ahiga threw himself into Blades from behind as the man monologued and pinned him against the floor.

"STOP TALKING!" Ahiga screamed as he turned Blades over on his face and saw the man smiling. Ahiga yelled in a rapturous anger as he began to beat Blades across the face repeatedly.

Ahiga punched with all his might over and over, back and forth. He sent a tooth flying from Blades's head. He felt a cheekbone crack, saw the man's flesh eye turn pink with blood. Ahiga grew impatient and grabbed a loose rock off the floor before beginning to strike Blades on the forehead with it. He split his skin and broke the stone in half, but his adversary's skull didn't yield, and his smile didn't fade.

"Heh," Blades said through bloodied teeth. "You have to do better than that kid." Ahiga felt something sharp enter his back and slid off Blades in shock.

Blades got up and stood over him as Ahiga touched the long, wide, double-edged knife blade in his back and noticed the sword on Blades's arm missing. It came back out of Ahiga's back with a wet sucking sound and flew through the air before landing back under Blades's sleeve and locking into place with a click.

"Huh. You got tough meat kid. I expected that blade to enter your lungs." Blades spoke as he deftly dodged another squirt of flame from Liban. He looked back at Liban with an annoyed look on his face, "I'm more interested in the boy than you."

He kicked Ahiga across the head to keep him down and sent his hook flying at Liban who stood with a defiant look on his face as the weapon cut through the air spiraling towards his chest. The hook was sent off course by an intense blast wind and Yekaterina stood up from crouching next to Ae-Cha to stare at Blades with utter hate and tears in her eyes. Ahiga turned around on his back and noticed Ae-Cha still breathing. He felt a tingling at the back of his skull.

Ahiga, this is Ae-Cha. You are the last person who can stop Blades. The others are out of energy, I can feel it. They can barely stand. I'm spending all my energy pumping my heart and lungs with telekinesis while Blades's poison paralyses my muscles. I know how much energy you have; you can muster one shot with green lightning. Please don't miss.

Ahiga felt the mental connection trickle off and looked up at Blades who turned his gaze back down on him and raised his arm-sword.

"You all were on the wrong side this whole time you know that? You serve the baseline humans like a dog because you don't want them to fear you, I let them be afraid. Three days of rampage twenty years ago weren't nearly enough to pay them back for everything they've done to our people. It's honestly a shame you couldn't have joined the Guild, you would have done great there."

A chair leg bounced off Blades's head and was followed by a gust of wind. The man looked up at Yekaterina and Liban with a confused look on his face. "I won't enjoy killing the rest of y'all, but I do respect the tenacity." He turned his attention back to Ahiga and raised his arm-sword higher.

Ahiga moved his right hand into the shape of a pistol and fired.

A beam of green energy shot out and smashed into the ceiling burning a hole deep into the solid rock above. The earth shook and a smell of ozone permeated the room as the intensity of the green light blinded Ahiga for several seconds.

As Ahiga's eyes cleared, he looked up to see Blades still standing to the right of his former position.

Blades looked down and saw his left arm cut off at the elbow and smoking. Wires fell out from the stub and the skin around his elbow melted and dribbled to the floor with a smell of burnt plastic.

"Huh, didn't quite dodge that quick enough. Oh well, I can always get another. Let's see if you can do the same for your head shall we?"

He raised his arm-sword once more. Ahiga felt numb and drained. Helpless.

Fuck I'm out of it. He thought as time seemed to slow while Blades brought his arm-sword down. I can't make a shield, I'm too weak. Oh gods, is this how I die? I never even got to be a hero…

Several gun shots rang out through the antechamber and blood and bits of flesh flew off Blades's skull.

As he fell to the ground the swipe of his blade missed Ahiga's head by a hairsbreadth and Blades's face was in a state of utter shock as his pupils dilated to consume his eyes. He landed with a thud and blood pooled around his head while his arms and legs slowly contracted and retracted scraping the stone floor with their attached blades. Ahiga stared in shock at his suddenly fallen foe as his eyes flickered shut. Finally, Ahiga managed to wrench his attention from Blades to the direction of the gunshots.

Ricky stood holding a smoking revolver in his hand. There was a hole in his suit over his heart and massive amount of blood soaking his chest, abdomen, back, and neck. The wound over his heart was healed shut.

Ricky walked over towards Ae-Cha and lifted the woman over his shoulder before turning his head to look at each of the others in turn.

"Now you know what Ricky does motherfuckers."

 

[Dab master]

Tjao Chronicles: Chapter Four


Assessment


​

Ahiga spat blood out of his mouth as he stood up while Ricky picked up Ae-Cha and the others pulled themselves off the ground. "We need to get the hell out of here." Ahiga said despite the sharp pain in his lungs. "If Veronica finds us weak like this, we're all fucking dead."

"Except Ricky apparently." Yekaterina said with a grimace. "By the way we never did get an explanation for that."

"Oh yeah!" Ricky said as he walked towards the exit with Ae-Cha. "I can't die."

"That's not an explanation!" Yekaterina protested.

"We got bigger problems Kat," Liban interrupted, "Ae-Cha needs medical attention and…Blades is still breathing."

"Want me to kill him?" Ricky asked as he looked down at the unconscious man.

"No. I want to bring him back for questioning." Liban said before suddenly stopping in his tracks. "Ahiga where's the reptilian you were fighting?"

Ahiga blanched. "He appears to have gotten away."

"Next time make sure your enemy is dead, you got that?" Liban repeated with steel in his voice.

Ahiga was speechless for a moment; he never thought of Liban as bloodthirsty, but in that moment, he felt fear about what the man was capable of.

He's just under stress. Ahiga told himself as he shoved the feeling down.

They hiked up the stairs. The entire place had an air of abandonment and hasty evacuation. As they reached the doorway to the outside he and Yekaterina had entered from, Ricky motioned for them to stop and handed Ae-Cha over to Liban before Kobold reached over and tapped the concrete slab doorway causing it to crumble.

Men in black body armor pointed guns at their faces.

"Put your hands in the air and do not move! You are under arrest by the Bureau of Extraterrestrial and Supernatural Affairs!"

Everyone put their hands up except for Liban who sighed and yelled, "Cade! Are you here Cade? We need medical help for Ae-Cha right now!"

BETSA agents started being shoved aside and Cade muscled his way to the front while shouting at the other men, "put your guns down you dumb motherfuckers they're the missing Mag squad!"

The men lowered their rifles and one lowered what looked like a flashlight on an assault rifle stock as Cade stood before them.

"Well shit, looks like you guys got the piss knocked out of you. Seeing as how you're alive; I'd hate to see the other guy."

Yekaterina held up Blades's limp, bloody hand she'd been dragging him by, "this is the other guy. There was also a reptilian that got away and Veronica the Vivisector."

"Fuck." Cade said breathlessly. "Well, I already called in a medical team so they should be here any moment now for Ae-Cha. Of course, if we run into Veronica, we'll probably all die so then it'd be a moot point."

Liban sighed. "Just get her help. She was hit with a paralytic and I'm not sure how long it will last, she's telekinetically pumping her lungs and heart right now and I'm not sure how long she can last."

"Well come out of that tunnel then." Cade said as he turned around and motioned the BETSA agents to disperse. "Keep an eye out for Veronica. Blast her with the UV lights and switch to silver bullets on your UT guns if you see her. And pray. It will probably help just as much as anything else you do."

The group moved out to the aqueduct and a more people came rushing forwards. One of them was a shaman in a buckskin frock who spoke to Cade in words Ahiga couldn't hear before heading to Ae-Cha and waving a pouch of herbs above her face while chanting in a language Ahiga didn't recognize. He thought it sounded Cherokee but was too tired to listen in closely.

Ahiga sat down in exhaustion on the concrete riverbed trying to gather his energy. But as soon as he sat down medics in white jumpsuits ran to him and began examining his wounds, poking and prodding with abandon as his anger built.

"I heal damnit! Go help the others!" He yelled while waving them off, fighting down the urge to hit them.

They sulked off while Cade walked towards him. "You alright Ahiga? I heard from Ricky and Liban that you gave that Blades fucker a run for his money. That's impressive you know, Blades is a dangerous mercenary, one of the most dangerous freelance Mags in the entire world in fact. We've been tracking him for a while but he never worked with the Guild before."

Ahiga shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I wasn't strong enough to beat him. We only got him using surprise. What use am I if some guy whose whole thing is blades can beat me down after all the others softened him up?"

"Heh," Cade said, "you're a pessimistic type. The use is that you learned, you'll be stronger next time. And you'll be stronger still if you train even harder going forward. I see great potential in you Ahiga, and we need people with potential. I'm not sure how much you pay attention to the news, but things are getting worse out there and we need people willing to fight to keep the world safe."

Ahiga was surprised at Cade's sincerity, at the passion in his voice. He looked up at the man and nodded while suppressing tears.

Cade managed a smile that looked almost normal. "See you back at base Ahiga. I've got to go fill out a report about all this shit. You guys never did learn what the Guild was doing down there."

Cade walked off and Ahiga managed to stand up despite the pain in his knees and the straining on the scabbed-over wound on his back. He walked past Liban who was having the stump of his lost pinky finger analyzed and kept on walking to Ricky who leaned against a support beam under the overpass smoking a cigarette.

"I'm not going to ask you how you did what you did, by why'd you never tell us what you did?"

Ricky shrugged. "Wanted to maintain the mystery. Wanted to avoid questions. Look how much they pestered you for being a freak like me. Someone whose hard to categorize."

Ahiga shook his head, "don't use the "woe is me" act on me. Your file was redacted when we were briefed on who was in our team. BETSA hid it from us. This is about trust Ricky. I need to know that we can trust you."

Ricky sighed and dropped his cigarette to the ground. "You wanna know the truth? I'll tell you the truth but it's going to blow your puny little mind. You ready?"

Ahiga nodded.

Ricky breathed out, closed his eyes, and clenched his fists. "The truth is…I gave such good head that I achieved immortality!"

"God damnit Ricky!" Ahiga yelled before storming off with a storm of curses while Ricky chuckled like a madman.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw Ae-Cha sitting up as the shaman walked off as his herb pouch was carried off in a plastic bag by a BETSA agent in a hazmat suit.

"Ae-Cha are you alright?" Ahiga asked running to her side.

She shook her head. "No. I'm exhausted." She said as the others ran beside her and Yekaterina kneeled to give her a hug.

"I thought we lost you and Ricky! Oh god I was scared!" She said through sobs.

Ae-Cha patted her on the back. "There there. I am…not fine. No, definitely not fine, but the paralytic is gone from my body."

Liban shook his head. "This can't happen again. We were unprepared to face someone as experienced as that asshole," he nodded towards Blades's comatose form which had been handcuffed and wrapped in self-tightening ropes, "we need to train to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Everyone nodded.

"Aye." Kobold said. "I have read Sebastian Blades's file before and he isn't strong enough to take down a whole squad on paper, but he has skill. And that's what we need to hone. Skill and unit cohesion."

"And we will." Liban finished looking once more to Blades whose eyes seemed to be twitching under their lids. "Oh, we will."

2 Weeks Later


​

Liban dodged Ahiga's punched, ducked below his arm, grabbed him at the elbow, and threw him over his shoulder onto the concrete floor of the training gym.

"No fair," Ahiga said with a cough, "you're taller than me."

"So? You need to recognize your enemy's strength and fight against it." Liban said looking down on him.

"Hm," Ahiga grunted before picking himself up off the ground with his hands and swinging his legs through the air to knock Liban's knees to the side.

Liban caught himself with his hands as he fell, but by that point Ahiga had gotten to his feet and launched himself to tackle Liban. Liban tried to grapple with him and Ahiga's superior strength brought him dominance and he soon straddled Liban and pinned his arms against the ground. Liban took a deep breath and breathed out a bolt of fire from his mouth forcing Ahiga to leap off him to avoid having his face singed.

Ahiga got to his feet as Liban stood up and surrounded both of his fists in balls of flame while he took a boxing stance. His fists flew at Ahiga who deftly dodged each strike and attempted to hit Liban in the abdomen only to strike an emergent panel of flame and reel his fist back in pain. Liban moved to sweep Ahiga's legs only for Ahiga to leap above his feet, land, and launch another strike at Liban's abdomen which Liban attempted to thwart using the same move as earlier. Ahiga reached his fist through the flame this time and knocked Liban across the room.

Liban was thrown against a hanging punching bag hard enough to send it flying into the air at a 90-degree angle and fell to the floor wheezing for breath. Ahiga struggled to ignore the pain in his knuckles and walked towards him.

"Fuck," Liban wheezed, "I yield."

"Thank the gods." Ahiga said with a sigh as he examined his burned knuckles, "I probably shouldn't try that move again."

Liban nodded. "Only hurt yourself in battle if you can hurt the enemy more."

Ahiga reached to help Liban up with his good hand and they began to exit the gym as Ae-Cha and Yekaterina entered.

"You boys look like shit." Yekaterina said. "Which I suppose means you did good. I think Ricky and Kobold just use training time to jerk off.

"Kobold would never do that." Liban said firmly. "Now Ricky…"

"Ricky saved our lives." Ae-Cha said with equal firmness.

"And he's still a horny monster." Ahiga added.

"Truly a man of many layers." Liban finished before exiting the gym with Ahiga in tow.

"We should probably get showers." Liban said casually.

Ahiga blushed at the thought. "Yes. Separately."

Liban shot him a glance. "I mean…yes?"

As the stairs down to the gym emptied back into the main living quarters Ahiga went down the opposite hallway from Liban, eager to escape. He rushed to his room and closed the door behind him with a sigh.

He heard his bathroom door swing open. In shock he took a fighting stance and leaped at the intruder, pining them to the wall before he could even register who they were.

Ricky looked up at him in surprise. "Why Ahiga, I always suspected there was some chemistry between us, but this is all so sudden!"

"Ricky!? What the fuck are you doing in my bathroom!?"

Ricky shrugged. "My john is clogged, I had to take a dump, and it would be weird to use on of the girl's rooms so I thought I'd just take a shit in yours. If you don't believe me, go in there and take a sniff around."

Ahiga tried to suppress his sense of smell as he suddenly registered the scent emanating from the bathroom and let Ricky go. "Don't use my toilet without my permission! And for the record, you will never get my permission!"

Ricky jumped on his bed to sit down and leaned forward. "Alright I get you! Message received you toilet Stratocrat!"

Ahiga quirked a brow. "Why are you sitting on my bed? Get out!"

Ricky looked pained. "I intend to after the welcome you gave me, the guy who saved your life by the way! Just uh, I need to sit down for like a minute."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ahiga protested.

Ricky raised his hands in a consoling gesture. "Alright I'm leaving! Just uh…autonomic responses and you know what's funny? Walking like a monkey."

Ricky leaped off his bed and scrambled away on all fours. Ahiga sighed in confusion.

"Ricky, you weirdo, I will never understand you." He felt the slightest twinge of a smile on his lips, when Ricky was distracting him with his antics, he didn't have to think about any of his anxieties.

Ahiga moved to pick his phone off the charger before deciding to vacate the room over the lingering odor. He walked down the hallway to the living room where he saw Kobold on the couch watching the news on the tv.

"What's going on?" Ahiga asked.

"The bloody president is giving a stupid speech on dealing with the demonic possession outbreak in Plymouth State. The man has no idea what he's talking about! He's blaming witches for it! Witches! The ladies who sort herbs! They're just alchemists with pretensions and they're summoning enough demons to possess people all around the state!? What a load of bull! Feh!" Kobold sputtered.

"Not a fan of President McGuffin I take it?" Ahiga ventured.

"Absolutely not! The whole National Liberal Party is a bunch of hooting reactionaries!"

"I was never much into politics myself." Ahiga said as he moved to walk into the kitchen.

"Well, you better hope the Nat Libs and the Heartland Party don't win the next election because they'd put BETSA on a much tighter leash! The Nat Libs would cut our funding and the Heartlanders would make us all swear an oath to Jesus and get inspected for demons every Friday and twice on full moons!"

Ahiga couldn't help but laugh at that. "Yeah, and the Progressives and the Freedom Party are much better."

Kobold scoffed. "You youngsters can't tell the difference between bad and worse! No wisdom!"

"You aren't much older than the rest of us Kobold." Ahiga said as he pulled a glass of rum from the fridge.

"Aye ladie, but I have experience!"

A sound of static came from the tv, and the screen turned red before shifting back to an image of the newsroom where a disheveled blond man stared out at the audience with a pained look in his eye.

"We interrupt this program to inform you of breaking news. There has been a demonic incursion in Hesse near the edge of the Black Zone. We have been informed by European Federation authorities that the incursion is sizeable and there is at least one demon lord spotted on the ground believed to be roughly a Class Z based on engagements with the European Rapid Demonic Reaction Task Force on the scene. The United Commonwealths of America have pledged assistance to the Europeans amidst this crisis as demonic forces pour towards the city of Frankfurt. European Forces have accepted UCA assistance although they have clarified that they are well within their capabilities to handle the problem on their-"

Kobold turned off the tv. "Well shit." He said. "Think we'll be called in?"

Ahiga shook his head while his stomach felt like it had been turned to lead and his chest felt tight as a drum. "No way of knowing who they'll call in to Europe, but we're pretty far away so I kind of doubt it."

"Yeah," Kobold responded, "Sharkville is a long way from the Atlantic. It's awful regardless."

"You'll struggle to find conflicting opinions." Ahiga retorted.

Kobold's gaze narrowed as he stared forward. "Struggle yes. But you can find them. We're a messed-up species all right."

Ahiga couldn't think of anything to say, and the room was bathed in silence.

Liban ran into the room on the phone. "Is that right? Really? Why!? No I do think we deserve to know! Damnit Cade!" He yelled before shoving his phone into his pocket.

He turned towards Kobold and sighed. "Get everyone in here. Now."

Kobold left the room and Ahiga ran up to Liban.

"Holy fuck are we going to Hesse?" He asked as his stomach felt ever heavier with anxiety.

Liban sighed. "I don't know why they're doing this. We got our asses laid out by a guy who controls blades, and they want us to help fight a demon incursion? Allah help us Ahiga, because we will need it." Liban shook his head.

Ricky, Yekaterina, Ae-Cha, and Kobold came into the room. Liban turned towards them and sighed once more before breaking the news, "gang, we're going demon hunting."

 

[Dab master]

Tjao Chronicles: Chapter Five

​

Hesse Arc Pt One

​

​

The transport plane shook in the air as it passed over France. Ahiga tried not to think about their destination.

It was going to happen at some point. He thought to himself. The reason they tolerate mags is because they need us to deal with this kind of shit; and probably because no one wants to see who would win in subspecies war.

"Eyes on me everyone!" Liban called as he walked to stand in front of the plane's hangar door. "We'll be parachuting in slightly outside the current line of contact with the enemy in the Nurnberg suburbs. The first order of business will be linking with the European Mag team. We will be under European command for this mission, our services are on loan. Apparently, the Euros want to show that they can be big boys and don't need the Commonwealths to hold their hand. And you'll need to get used to the…eccentricities of our European comrades."

Yekaterina groaned. "The Euros are fucking dorks is what you mean. They dress up in costumes and call each other nicknames like in one of those old superhero comics."

"Just be glad they didn't take inspiration from the funny animal comics Kat." Kobold snorted.

Yekaterina blinked. "Are you kidding? Then they'd be furries! Sexy, sexy, furries..."

"I hate that I've learned this about you." Liban said flatly.

"Don't kink shame bro it's not a good look, you don't want to go down that path." Ricky reprimanded.

Liban grimaced and looked at Ahiga. "Back me up here Ahiga."

Ahiga blushed and lifted his hands in a placating gesture. "Don't drag me into the hole you dug for yourself Liban."

Ae-Cha cleared her throat to get their attention. "If I may," she said as the others looked at her, "don't be a piece of shit Liban."

Ricky jumped out of his seat, "You just got roasted brorangutang!"

"No one is on your side on this." Kobold added as Yekaterina got off of the bench and reached across the plane aisle to high-five him while Ricky began to dance tauntingly around Liban.

Liban sighed and pushed Ricky back onto the bench. "At this moment my hate for all of you cannot be mea-" his sentence was cutoff as the plane rocked in the air and Liban tottered and fell, managing to fall onto the bench next to Ricky.

The intercom crackled.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing turbulence as a result of demonic activity but rest assured, we will soon be over the drop zone. Over and out." The pilot announced before the intercom once again came to rest.

Liban stood up once more and walked to the exit ramp before turning around and facing them. "Get into formation everyone, we are about to drop."

With some grumbling the group lined up behind Liban. Ahiga stood directly behind him and felt a horrible pain in his stomach as his anxiety and fear mingled and knotted together.

Oh my gods I don't want to die. Wait. Gods. I need to focus on something. On hope. On faith. Ahiga felt a twinge of pain shoot through his soul. He had only grown reconnected with the old ways recently, and he had no spiritual guide. He believed in them, but he felt distance between him and the gods and spirits of his ancestors. Distance born of time spent in foster homes with caretakers who were usually Anglo, and if not lazily secular then actively proselytizing. He felt a sense of loss, he felt like his acknowledgement of the distance he felt made the distance worse, which worsened his faith, which when he noticed made him feel more distant from his faith which…

Stop! He mentally yelled at his own spiraling mind. You need to recenter. You can't follow the loop of self-doubt. That's what will kill you down there, they'll eat that up like candy on Samhain. You need to have faith, if not in yourself then in your comrades, he looked around and knew he trusted them, and in your ancestors and gods, even if you can't see them.

He inhaled and exhaled one more time as the hangar door dropped and the air in the cabin rushed out. Liban leaped and plunged into the unknown. Ahiga forced his knees to carry him past the edge of the ramp and looked only forward into the blue beyond as he leaped.

Plunging. He looked down at the earth below. A sea of suburbs held together by a net of trolley tracks greeted his eyes. He plunged past Liban who opened his parachute and proceeded to pull the string on his own.

The string came loose and flew away from his hand as his parachute stayed in its pack. He pulled the secondary string. It flew through the air just like the first and his pack remained closed.

Well fuck, he thought to himself. This is an embarrassing way to die. I was hoping for a cooler death. One that made everyone think I was a hero. This is just kinda lame.

His thoughts were oddly calm as death greeted him as a certainty and not a possibility. Then he had an idea. He reached out his hands and a green forcefield formed around him in a perfect bubble.

I wonder if this'll work. He thought to himself as his brain began to flood with adrenalin. Ah fuck, I'll find out pretty soon. He looked down at the closely approaching ground, he could make out yards and what looked like a group of people staring up at him. He lifted his face and closed his eyes waiting for the bubble to make impact with the ground. He felt like he was getting slower and wondered if it was his sense of time being altered by impending death. Then he realized the wind coming across his face was a different speed, the upward draft was gone.

He opened his eyes and saw his bubble still surrounding him, but looked down to see it resting on a slowly descending Persian rug that gently dumped him in the middle of a trolley track. He dropped the shield and blinked as he noticed the people standing before him.

The nearest person to him was a short, black-haired, olive-complected, teenager whose face was hard to make out as the top half of his head was covered by a mask of what looked like dark blue rubber that tied around the back of his head. The rest of his costume was the same pattern, thick blue rubber that covered his torso, arms, legs, and neck while his feet and hands were covered by black boots and gloves respectively. Ahiga noticed a raised black cross insignia on the boy's chest.

"You had a bad fall there Senor, good thing el alfombra caught you or you would be splat on the pavement."

Ahiga grunted. "Thanks for the save, uhm…what's your…nickname?"

The boy chuckled. "Well do not thank me senor, thank Lama Fedele." The boy said pointing over his shoulder at a yellow Sri Jayan who wore a grey uniform with a face mask designed to look like a spear pointing downwards, fitting considering the massive polearm the Sri Jayan held. Ahiga also noted the fact that the mask concealed the Sri Jayan's small horns and had to dip below his closed third eye. He nodded at the Sri Jayan and turned his attention back to the boy who began to speak again.

"As for me, I am known as Chico de la Biblia."

Ahiga failed to suppress a wheezing laugh. "I'm sorry…I'm really sorry, it's just that your name translated into English is…very silly." He managed after forcing the laughter to a stop.

Chico de la Biblia seemed at ease as his gaze lifted to look above and behind Ahiga who looked in the same direction to see his squad being carried by Yekaterina's wind to land behind him on the street.

"Jesus Christ Almighty Ahiga! Do you have to give us a heart attack on every goddamn mission!" Kobold yelled as he ran to Ahiga and grabbed him by the shoulders to shake him.

Ricky ran towards him and pushed Kobold aside to lift Ahiga into the air in a hug as he sobbed and managed words between breaths. "Oh..god…I..thought…we…lost…youuu!!! Ahhh!!!"

Ahiga wiggled out of his grasp. "Jesus Christ Ricky calm the hell down I'm fine!" He protested.

Yekaterina patted him on the back and Liban and Ae-Cha nodded to him as they assembled and began to take full stock of the European team. Alongside the teen in the mask and the Sri Jayan stood a knight in gleaming slivery armor of chainmail who had a small axe and a sword on his belt and held a flail and a large tear-drop shaped shield in his hands.

"Bonjour," the knight said, "you may call me The Third Roland, or Roland the III for short."

Liban walked forwards and began to shake their hands while Ahiga noticed a shadow from above. Looking up, he saw the silhouette of a man with wings. He was briefly taken aback by the sight before realizing what he was looking at.

The man descending from the sky had skin that was white, truly white like ivory or marble instead of the shade of pink that defined Caucasians, his hair meanwhile was the red of a vibrant rose and curled into loose springs, his massive wings were orange and spotted in black like a monarch butterfly, his nose was thin and hooked, his chin pointed, his cheekbones high, and his eyes had red irises that pushed his whites into being barely visible slivers while his pupils were curved slits of black that could be easily construed to be the letter S. He was covered in scale-mail armor that was as white as his skin and he held a sword in his right hand with a hilt like polished brass and a blade like red sapphire while his left hand held a medium-length javelin that had a handle of semi-translucent mother-of-pearl and a tip that looked like it was forged out of a rainbow opal whose colors seemed to dance in the sunlight.

The man spoke in a voice that seemed oddly melodic and feminine. "Greeting warriors from over the sea, I am-"

"-Sin Seeker." Ahiga finished his sentence.

The man nodded. "You know of me?'

"Heh." Liban responded. "Everyone knows of you Sin Seeker. We just didn't expect to see you here."

"And why not? This is the continent of my origin and I vanquish demons wherever they may be."

Liban nodded. "We know. We just weren't informed you were going to be working with us in particular. Is this all of your group?"

"No." Roland the Third responded. "We have two more." He said before calling out, "Woods Walker! Argammon!"

A short, slight woman with platinum blonde hair and fur clothes topped with a wolf's head hood emerged from a seemingly impossibly small bush next to a nearby house holding a sling in her hand and nodded at them.

"Sup." Ricky said. "I'm guessing your Woods Walker?"

The woman nodded and gestured upwards with her head. Ahiga looked up and saw a blurry object descending from the sky only to watch it smash into the earth before them causing an area of street to splinter apart under the impact. In the resultant crater stood a seven-foot-tall, olive-complected woman with short black hair, bulky musculature, a large, antiquated crossbow in her arms, a curved short sword on her belt, and armor of what looked like bronze consisting of knee and lower leg guards, arm guards, a chest plate, a back plate, a Greek-style helmet, and a small, square shield on her left arm.

"Now we are all introduced." Sin Seeker said.

Liban nodded at him. "Indeed, so now we need you to tell us what to do."

Sin Seeker motioned westwards, "The enemy comes from that direction, the battlefield is in chaos, and we need to approach cautiously in order to apprise a constantly changing situation. Updates about the enemy from high command are good, but they will always be out of date."

Liban grunted, Ahiga guessed he was discouraged by the lack of strategy. Sin Seeker turned away from them and began to fly at a relatively leisurely pace towards the west so they could keep up, Lama Fedele flanked him as he rode on his flying carpet.

"So," Ahiga said as he walked beside Chico de la Biblia, "what do you do?"

The teen chuckled. "I am not a mag if that is what you are asking. Nor am I a wizard."

Ahiga raised a brow in a questioning motion causing the teen to chuckle again.

"I was blessed by the Holy Ghost who told me to wield the swords of Saint Alfonso, when I went to his cathedral, they flew through the air towards me and allowed me to possess them so I could use their power for good." He tapped the crossed rapiers on his back, "I am given the speed of the word with these swords, and they protect me from demons, that's why I was called to stand beside Sin Seeker. That's why everyone here was, we all get our powers from the relics we hold rather than our learned skills or inherent abilities. And all our relics are holy."

"Does it bother your faith that Sin Seeker is Jewish?" Ahiga asked. "And why would the Holy Ghost choose, well, a teenager?"

The teen shrugged. "Who are we to attempt to pry at divine mysteries? Only a lunatic could deny that Sin Seeker is an enemy of demons and a friend of humanity by dint of his relationship with his…partner. Now about his view of the divine I must disagree."

Ahiga avoided mentioning that Sin Seeker was fused with an angel, and that to him that suggested a closer connection with the divine than swords that made the wielder run faster and be harder to kill.

His thoughts were derailed as he felt the shiver travel up his spine. A horrible feeling, like spiders were crawling up his vertebrae and worming their way into his nerves. He felt a distinct sense of dread and horror, he tried to figure out what direction it was coming from but every direction he focused on seemed off, until he realized it was coming from underneath the earth.

"Everyone move! There's something underground!" He yelled as he leaped into the air and pushed Chico de la Biblia forward.

Where his feet last were the asphalt of the street burst open and what appeared to be a purple pile of sand erupted from the earth like a spout of magma from a volcano. Ahiga landed back from his former position and saw it wasn't sand, it was thousands of miniscule, squirming, organisms each about the size of a grain of rice. Some flew in every direction as the pile oozed its way to the surface and Ahiga seized one that landed on him and gave it a glance. His only frame of reference was that it looked somewhat similar to an ant-sized snowman made of purple flesh with a mouth on its top part that vomited up a droplet of acid onto his skin. He threw it on the ground and stomped it as the acid elicited a slight burn from his skin.

The pile continuously lifted itself out of its tunnel and formed a blob of a body that it hoisted up on shifting pillars of wriggling organisms. Newly formed tentacles began to pull wads of organisms off its body and Ahiga formed a force field just in time to stop a chunk the size of a basketball that was thrown his way.

"Yekaterina boost my fire!" Liban yelled as the woman nodded and pulled two vials off her belt before popping off the lids. She quickly turned the solid oxygen and methane ice into torrents of air that she blasted at the creature, the air currents then ran into Liban's fire forming an inferno that scorched the amalgamation and forced it to flee into the tunnel it had emerged from. Liban did not let up as he curved his gout of flame to follow the beast underground while Yekaterina continued to boost his flame with her air stream.

They stopped as a noxious smoke came up from the tunnel and Woods Walker and Ahiga reeled back from the choking fumes before Yekaterina gathered the vapor up into a concentrated sphere and forced it back into the tunnel as Kobold touched the tunnel's edge and caused the earth to seal it off.

Sin Seeker looked down on them and nodded. "Efficient work." He said before he turned forward once more, and his face grew worried. "The screen of the enemy's forces approaches. Put your offensive fighters behind your grapplers and prepare to hold the line. Kobold, form a moat against the horde."

Everyone moved into position, but Ahiga was confused as to whether he should be in the back or front do to being an atlas class, but also having his green lighting, ultimately he joined Roland, Argammon, Kobold, and Chico de la Biblio at the front while Woods Walker, Yekaterina, Ae-Cha, Liban, and Ricky moved to the back as Ricky prepared his assault rifle loaded with silver bullets.

Ahiga prepared for the enemy as the ground began to shake, sparing a brief glance to the sky where Sin Seeker and Lama Fedele prepared to fight the enemy's air support.

"Hold firm," Sin Seeker yelled, "the enemy is weaving down the street towards you."

The rumbling in the earth grew more intense and horrible whispering voices began to fill Ahiga's head driving him mad before he suddenly regained mental silence. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ae-Cha in deep mental concentration and nodded to himself.

People forget how important it is to have support. He thought before he once again noticed horrible screeches and screams filling the air. Suddenly he realized that he was now hearing them in the mundane sense.

He sniffed. I can smell them. Like piss and shit mixed with rotten meat and sulfur and…hatred? I can smell…hatred? He shook his head and tried to concentrate on what was important.

Horns blasted and he felt his bones shake from the sound. He shivered and noticed the smoke and dust approaching from over the roofs of the houses. Sweat ran down his sides and across his face as the horrible chattering grew more distinct.

A demon leaped through the air to land on the roof directly in front of him. It was roughly similar in body plan to a lemur but the size of a child with furless red skin, horns like an ibex, and a long tube-like tail ending in a spike of bone. It lifted its lips to reveal prominent canines and as it let out a horrible screech from its throat.

RAI SHA TEEL!

It screamed out as more lemur-esque creatures began to leap onto the roofs around it and started to jump to the side, slowly circling them from the rooftops. One was suddenly beheaded by what looked like a flying stone. The creatures briefly stopped their advance as another was knocked off a roof with crossbow bolt before more were struck with bullets, psionic blasts, and miniature tornados.

Then they moved in for the kill.

Ahiga focused on the one heading directly for him which moved in step with the rest of its troop, one column seeming to target each of his frontline comrades as they leapt over Kobold's trench with no difficulty. He swiftly reached for the crossing leather straps on his chest, grabbed a blessed titanium throwing knife, and launched it at the creature nearest to him. He watched as it lodged into the center of its skull and sent it tumbling. The second beast hopped over the body of its comrade and continued forward, dodging a thrown blade from Ahiga and picking up its pace with dogged determination.

Ahiga grabbed three blades and launched them all, one creature went down as a knife severed its elbow with the strength of its impact while another screamed in agony as a knife went through the front of its chest and disappeared into its body while the third knife became stuck in the back of the devil lemur directly in front of Ahiga, not seeming to slow its advance. Ahiga's hand twitched as he was tempted to send forth his green lightning, but he remembered how drained it made him every time he used it and grabbed another throwing blade instead. He aimed and managed to nail the lead devil lemur in the eye, causing it to roll over onto the ground limp as a sack of beans.

The new lead devil lemur simply ran over its flailing comrade and jumped at Ahiga with its claws out, its teeth barred, and its tail spike lifted over its head. Ahiga felt time slow down and realized he knew the exact trajectory of the devil lemur as it descended through the air towards him. His brain seemed to trace its route for him, and in less than a second he slightly altered his stance, and allowed the devil lemur to descend past him before grabbing it by the back leg, and pulling it upwards before smashing it against the street with enough force that its horns were knocked backwards through its skull to poke out from the bottom of its snout.

He lifted his eyes to see the next devil lemur taking a different approach, running low at his feet. He jumped into the air and landed on the beast's back feeling its spine crunch beneath him. It wiggled as he planted one foot on the ground and lifted the other into the air as the demon's tail spike lashed out at him. He reached to grab the creature's tail only to find it too fast for him and changed his tactic once again bringing his foot down in a stomp on its abdomen which imploded beneath his heel as the demon let out a few last twitches.

He grabbed it by the tail and pulled his attention to the side where he saw Roland struggling with a demon on his back that was clawing at his pointed helmet. Ahiga swung the barely alive demon by its tail and smacked the devil lemur on Roland's back with it. His creature's horns impaled the other demon, sticking the two together, and threw them both as a projectile into a third approaching enemy, sending it sprawling backwards where it temporarily tripped yet another devil lemur.

Ahiga felt like fire was coursing through his veins as he let out a yell and grabbed another leaping devil lemur by its horns which he snapped off before using them to club the demon into the ground and smash its skull. He looked up again and used one of the horns to stab another jumping devil lemur up through the bottom of its jaw and into its skull before swinging it into the ground and pulling the horn loose.

Then he felt four pairs of claws launch into his back.

Damnit! I didn't watch my back!

He felt the devil lemur on his back knock the wind out of him and he barely managed to stand upright and stab the abomination through the skull only to feel its tail barb pierce his lower back. Another demon running low to the ground launched itself into his lower left leg as the devil lemur on his back fell to the ground. He launched the devil attacking his leg with a kick as it bit him on the leg and quickly reached for a throwing blade with each hand and used one to knock down another low-runner and another to nail a leaper in the abdomen before he punched it back into the air sending black ichor spraying form its wound.

He looked out across the battlefield and saw the state of his comrades who generally seemed to be holding their ground. Roland smashed a devil lemur's skull with his shield before splattering another's brains with his flail. A crossbow bolt flew over Ahiga's head and knocked a creature akin to a antlered bat crossed with a pterodactyl out of the air. A six-feet-across octopus-like creature with folds of skin between its tentacles had its center of mass shot through with a stone, a fireball burned a beast that looked somewhat like a pig in armadillo's armor with far too many tusk and black smoke rolling out of its nostrils. El Chico de la Biblia zipped across the battlefield slaying devil lemurs and other demons that had joined the assault, Ahiga watched the head fly off a saber-toothed, hairless, chimpanzee-esque demon that ran on its hind legs and saw Chico de la Biblia then plunge his rapiers into a screeching animate rolling ball of flame and pitch that unraveled in its death throws as its fire died.

Horns blasted across the battlefield and the small demons seemed to grow still for a second before retreating backwards towards the source of the noise.

I don't like that at all. Ahiga thought to himself with a sense of dread.

The horn blasts continued in a rhythmic pattern as the sound grew closer once more. The earth shook. They came.

From around the street corner the snail eyes rode onto the battlefield, their steads leaping over Kobold's trench with only one misjudging its leap and falling in with a whinny of protest.

Ahiga got a good look at the infamous creatures all people knew with fear in their hearts, the cavalry of the demon hordes. They were roughly humanoid, although it was harder to tell with most of their spindly forms were covered in armor that looked more like the exoskeleton of an insect than anything forged. Only their heads were exposed to show their oddly round skulls, their grey wrinkly hide, their crocodilian teeth, and their projecting eyestalks which swerved back and forth across the battlefield. Their mounts heaved and ran forth, as the snail eyes were shaped roughly like men, so the hell horses were shaped roughly like horses. They could have almost been mistaken for horses down to the noises they made until one noticed the fur gray as ash, the lion-like heads filled with grinning teeth, and their long thick tails which swung behind them like a lizard's.

The snail eyes raised their barbed spears forged of metal as black as coal and fired off the first salvo of miniature rockets as the spear tips launched off their staffs only to be replaced. Ahiga formed a shield as Yekaterina shifted a wall of mixed iron and coal dust carried by her wind in front of the flying spear tips and Kobold quickly tapped it to transform into a massive steel plate that bent and folded under the spear tip rockets but did not break as it fell to the ground.

The snail eyes were not deterred as their mounts opened their jaws and launched a hailstorm of burning brimstones at them from their maws. Roland held up his shield, Kobold formed a pillar of earth for cover, Ahiga kept his forcefield up, and Chico de la Biblia dodged the burning stones as Yekaterina, and Ae-Cha used wind and psychic force to launch them back at the snail eyes.

The move was not as effective as they might have hoped as the snail eyes' mounts used their great speed to dodge the tossed stones with only a few being caught. They then closed in with Ahiga's line as the snail eyes raised their spears once more and Ahiga prepared for the greatest fight of his life…