Ch 20: Questions But No Answers

“What are YOU doing here?!”

Pulling her polearm back, the tension between the blades released. Spinning it between her fingers, she flicked her eyes up and down at Hiro, who slotted his poison dagger back into its sheath.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Hiro said, the colour in his face returning, and the violent racing of his heart easing off.

Happening faster than he could comprehend, Ace narrowed his eyes into the darkness to see another figure standing next to Hiro.

Mira? What’s she doing here?

“Look at you two, scurrying in the alleyways like rats.” She said, her words sharp as the blade she pointed in their direction.

“Yeah, that includes you, too, smartass.” Hiro’s words twisted like a parody, unfazed despite being a few centimetres from losing his life mere moments ago.

As the two bickered back and forth, Ace squinted his eyes through the darkness. “Wait…where’s he gone?”

Mira and Hiro snapped their heads to the streetlamp. Desolate and ghostly, there was nothing but a halo of light on the pavement.

“For f*ck sake, he got away cause of you.”

“Me?” Mira extended the blade to Hiro’s neck, her eyes sharpened and wary. “What are you doing following Mr Hemlok?”

“So his name’s Mr Hemlok, huh?” Hiro said, drifting into thought, unperturbed by the razor-sharp edge.

“Answer the question!” With a shrewd, distrustful glare, Mira pressed the blade onto Hiro’s skin, a gentle press away from cutting into the flesh.

Shit. This might get ugly.

Slippery. That’s what the handle of Ace’s pistol felt like against his fingers. Engrossed in Mira’s every minor movement, he gripped the cold metal, time itself seeming to slow from the anticipation.

It’s dark, and Mira moves quickly; it’d be hard to shoot her from this range. What if I hit Hiro?

Hiro’s head rolling on the floor. A hole in Mira’s skull. Intestines spilling out onto the floor. Ace pictured the many ways this encounter could unfold, the air getting caught in his throat. None of them were pretty.

“Ya gonna kill me right here, huh? What are ya waiting for? The guy you’re stalking is getting further away each second.” Hiro’s face contorted into an intense expression, burning with defiance, his gaze collided with Mira’s threatening stare. Her grey eyes glittered like diamond thorns.

“Stalking? I’m following him on the suspicion of treason, murder, and trafficking.”

The words struck the atmosphere, cutting through the tension in the air. Ace’s jaw slackened; meanwhile, Hiro’s lips curled into a snarky grin. Ace had spent enough time with him to know what that grin meant. He could almost hear the words “I was right” in his voice. Somehow, Hiro’s suspicions were proved to be on point once again.

But before Hiro could let out another comment that would cause things to escalate, Ace butted in. “Wait. I-I think I recognised that red symbol.”

Mira’s attention turned to Ace, withdrawing her blade from Hiro’s neck.

“A woman at the bar had it. Something about meeting her at the old clock tower.”

Raising her brows, Mira twisted the ends of her coloured hair.

“Attaboy,” Hiro said, flashing a wide grin.

                                                                                ***

The Phoenix Cradle — South Hill

Descending into decay. The old clock tower loomed over the other buildings on the Southern Hill, sticking out like a sore thumb. Rustic and faded, while the surrounding buildings were all noticeably refined and in much better condition. Many years prior, when South Hill was being refurbished from a marketplace and meadow into an industrial park, all the buildings were demolished to make space for warehouses and storage facilities. The Clocktower, however, was preserved as a memento, a stark reminder of the Syndicate's development. Though what currently stood in front of Ace was nothing more than a hollow tower, weathered, succumbing to the relentless tides of time.

“What are you waiting for? Scared?” Hiro said, echoing the words that Mira once used as a taunt, though unlike him, she didn’t care to acknowledge the comment.

Pressing against the splintered wooden door, it murmured as it creaked open, warning the trio to turn back around. Mira lit a small blue flame in her palm as she pressed forward, her boots causing the brittle floorboards to whimper with each step. The air was stale, striking the three with an oppressive sense of loneliness. Goosebumps raised on Ace’s arms, unable to shake the feeling that they had strayed into a place they didn’t belong. Bare and dark—the rooms were nothing but fractured walls and creaking floorboards, yet strangely the layers of dust were unsettled.

“BOO!”

Mira flinched, turning around, the light in her palm uncovered a mischievous grin.

“If you try that again, I’ll kill you right here, right now,” She said, the corners of her pointy ears tinting red.

Ignoring Hiro’s shenanigans, Ace wandered into the next room with his own little flame burning at his fingertip. While still getting the hang of offensive spells, he was proud to have pretty much mastered the basics. The progress was reassuring; he would often daydream of the lavish magic he might one day learn to wield, and it was exciting to see where his continued efforts would take him. As he stepped through another doorway, he recalled the ethereal, galaxy-like spell he had witnessed back in the Barrens, where stars orbited the robed man with an uncanny, moon-shaped mask.

I wonder what happened to that creepy guy.

Like whiplash, Ace’s body was snatched backwards, faster than his consciousness could follow.

CRASH!

The sound of heavy metal reverberated through the hollow rooms.

Mira ran around the corner to see Hiro and Ace sprawled on the floor, staring blankly through a doorway.

Pointy, needle-like barbs stuck into the ground, corroded and covered in a dried brown musk.

“You owe me, again,” Hiro said, inspecting the spiked ambush.

Stepping over the spikes and poking his head into the room, a foul odour choked his throat. As he covered his nose, his first thought was that something had died in here. Abandoned and helpless, left to rot in the dark. As Mira lit the room with her blue flame, she felt her boots sink into something soft, and the atmosphere decayed into a mix of disgust, confusion, and sheer terror.

A canvas painted in blood stains. Metal cages, chains, and shackles. Scalpels, blades, and cleavers. Insects crawled over the clumps of brown and needles covering the floor, sprawling towards the feet of the three witnesses. Foreign symbols and rune circles blanketed the walls. A map of the occult, papers and pictures, linked by hundreds of red strings and pins. In the centre of the room was an ominous chair with chains and shackles. From it, Ace thought that he could faintly hear the howling—the writhing agony of unheard screams. The desperate cries of tormented souls still lingered in the air.

The stench was too pungent to speak, and so the three stood there in silence, frozen in time.

Only at the distant creaking of wood did the seconds resume their marching.

The three scrambled out of the odour's reach, clinging to the near wall as the creaking encroached.

There. A foot stepped into the room. Mira was the first to move. She swung her blade in a downward arc before it met an unstoppable force.

CLANG!

It ricocheted off the plated armour, not even leaving a scratch.

“ODEN?!” She squealed, her face contorting into a mix of confusion and frustration.

The armoured tank stood there with his usual stoic expression; however, something about his demeanour struck Ace as oddly confrontational, contrasting his usual kind eyes and gentle presence.

“I thought I told you to stay out of this.” His voice was cold, devoid of emotion. While Mira expected him to be angry, the lack thereof was somehow more terrifying. It was enough to cause Hiro and Ace to shrink back as they attempted to remain bystanders, safe from Oden’s immense authority.

“Are you crazy? There’s no way that-“ Mira’s voice was fiercely defiant, but even then it was hushed in one motion.

SMASH!

Oden slammed the end of his great-axe into the ground, commanding silence. Ace and Hiro flinched back as the whole clock tower trembled from the shockwave.

“Under the Act of Honour, Dr Hemlok is a Ward of the State. I thought I warned you. Yet here you are…sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Mira gritted her teeth, her glittering grey eyes sharpened, staring daggers into the armoured titan. Suddenly, a glowing reptile materialized out of thin air, latching onto Mira. It hissed as it lunged its head forward, baring its rows of serrated teeth toward Oden.

“So what, you’re going to just let him get away with this?!”

Indifferent to Mira’s retorts, Oden stood with his axe in the ground, his words callous and uncaring.

“I’ve already told you, if you are so…displeased, you may bring it up with her majesty upon her return.”

In a split second, Mira leapt toward the exit, her silhouette faintly visible in the doorway.

“I should’ve expected nothing more from her lapdog.” She said bitterly, leaving Oden a nasty glare.

Ace felt his heart quicken, as it was only Hiro and him left to withstand Oden’s temper.
They both watched with bated breath as the armoured giant uprooted his colossal axe from the ground, stowing it away on his back. He looked toward the pair with empty eyes before leaving without saying a word, the floorboards fracturing under each step.

Left with only the loneliness of the old clock tower and its hollow walls, Ace glanced toward Hiro for some sort of acknowledgement that the chain of events they had just witnessed wasn’t all some fever dream.

GONG. GONG. GONG

A haunting chime echoed through the clock tower. 

“Well…time to head home and sleep, I guess.”

                                                                              ***

“PLEASE HELP ME!”

“Where’s the doctor? My son, he’s gonna die!” she screamed, her voice filled with desperation.

Curious, Hiro crouched down to inspect the child. Without saying a word, Hiro’s eyebrows shot up, his gaze turning into a wide-eyed stare, interrupted by another person entering the room.

“I’m here, let’s have a look,” Mira said, her brown boots tapping against the wooden floorboards.

“You? Doctor? Are you kidding me?” Hiro said mockingly, but Mira paid no attention to his comment.

“He keeps having visions! PLEASE! Surely, as a member of the Phoenix Spearhead, you can help him? You know special magic, don’t you?”

“First of all, I need you to calm down. What did the other doctors say? Tell me all his symptoms.”

“Visions. He k-keeps having visions. Visions of d-death. All the other doctors they…” The woman stammered, her breaths quick and shallow. “T-they’re dead.”

Mira turned toward Ace and Hiro. “Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like Scourgenesis, but I can’t talk to her when she’s in a state of panic. I’m going to ask you two to give us some privacy.”

Ace nodded, while Hiro shot him a sideways glance. Walking past, words were whispered into Ace’s ear.

“The Pinewood Tavern, 7 pm.”