Interlude: Monsters

“Hey, Tez, you up?”

Tez groaned, rolling over. “Leave me alone, Mia. It’s early.”

Tez heard Mia sigh and step past him. Knowing what she was about to do, Tez pulled his blanket over his eyes as Mia yanked open the blinds. “Seriously, Tez? Get up, we’ve got work to do.”

“Can’t some of the other guys do it? I’m still sore from last night.”

“We’re all needed for this one, Tez. The Prince wants us all there.” She grabbed his blanket, yanking it out of his grasp.

Tez moaned and sat up, pushing his crooked hair out of his face. He eyed the blanket and lunged for it. Mia was too quick, however, whipped it out of the way, and tossed it out of his reach. “Really?” he asked as she gave a hmph of satisfaction and strode over to his closet, picking through the few shirts that hung there.

She paused on a light yellow one, plucked it from the hanger, and tossed it at him. He caught it deftly. “Can’t that dude ever give us a break?” he asked, pulling the shirt over his bare chest.

Mia rolled her eyes, pulling her long, black hair back into a ponytail. “I don’t even know why you ask at this point; the answer is always the same.”

“I know,” Tez lamented, pulling on his shoes as Mia pulled a small box into the closet entryway, stepping up onto it and reaching for the ceiling. “I just wish he’d at least share a bit with us.”

“Don’t act like he doesn’t, Tez. We’ve got a roof over our heads, don’t we? We’ve got food, clothes…” she pushed away a false section of the ceiling and reached into it, producing a lightning baton which she tucked into her leggings before reaching back in and tossing him his gun.

He caught it and activated the biometrics that would allow him to shoot it before slipping it into the pocket of his trousers. “I just wish we had a bit more, you know?”

“What more is there to have? Aren’t we comfortable?”

Tez eyed her as she climbed down. “Oh, I’m comfortable alright— when I’m asleep.”

“Don’t be so negative,” she said, holding out the last item from the hidden storage space, a pure black mask with two diagonal slits for sight, as well as two foxlike ears jutting off in the corners.

He slipped it on as Mia continued. “He’s already paying off everyone that would notice our little excursions, so cut him some slack. You wouldn’t have a weapon without him, and we’d all be starving on the streets.”

“Then it's society’s fault,” he replied as Mia slipped on her mask, a duplicate of his except for the color— it was white. “There shouldn’t be so many of us having to run with the likes of him just to survive.”

“Can’t do anything about society,” Mia replied, offering her hand. He accepted and she helped him to his feet. “We’ve just gotta worry about ourselves, here and now.”

“Whatever,” he said as they left the small shack, making sure to secure the door behind them, “lets’ just get this over with.”

“Please,” the man begged, scampering backward as Tez advanced. He ignored the man, checking the number of shots he had left— exactly one. He smiled. Mia’s planning was always perfect.

He leveled the gun at the man and took a moment to glance back towards Mia, admiring her ability as she ducked under a guard’s swing, dropped him with her baton, then swung around, sweeping the leg of the last. She shocked him too before nodding her intention to join him.

He turned back toward the man in time to see him pull something from his pocket. Without hesitation, Tez fired his weapon, disintegrating the man’s arm. The man howled as Tez bent to his knee, picking up the object he’d forced the man to drop. It was a small silver coin, one of the highest denominations of their currency.

Tez sighed and tucked away his weapon, carefully watching the whimpering man as Mia joined him. “What are you waiting for?” she asked as she approached.

Tez bit his lip. Their target was in front of them, and he was out of ammunition. “I kinda made a mistake,” he said, chuckling to try and play it off as okay.

“Seriously? You should have another shot left. What’d you do?”

He held up the coin. “He pulled this out of his coat; scared me.”

“Damn it,” Mia said, turning on her lightning baton. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way, but first…”

She stepped towards the man and held out her hand. “Give us the key.”

The man complied, letting go of the stump Tez had made of his left hand and pulling a key from around his neck. “Why are you doing this,” he whispered. “You’re just kids. I can tell from your voices.”

Tez narrowed his eyes. “We were kids,” he said, stepping forward and snatching the key from the man’s hand. “It’s guys like you who made us what we are. Now we’re monsters,” he said, walking away.

He paused and turned back to Mia. “You got this guy?”

She nodded.

“Good, I’m gonna go check out the loot then.”

As he rounded the corner, going back the way they’d come, he clenched his fist tight around the key, trying to cut out the screams of the dying man from his mind.

A few minutes later, Mia joined him, wiping blood from her arms. A stark line of the stuff cut across her mask, staining it crimson. “What happened?”

“He tried to run. I cut off his feet.”

Tez frowned but didn’t say a word. Once she was clean, excluding the slash across her mask, they opened the vault, revealing a stockpile of food, gold, and silver. As Mia began to sort through it, Tez opened his wrist communicator and called the Prince.

“Do you really think we’re monsters,” Mia asked as they sat in silence, waiting for the Prince’s extraction team to arrive.

“We’re all monsters,” Tez replied, fingering the coin he’d taken from their target. “Born from a cruel world.”

Two days later, the Prince sent them on their next mission, one personal to the twins.

“I see the target,” Mia said through the communicators the Prince had provided them. “He’s heading north, trying to get back to the Upper District.”

“I’ll cut him off,” Tez replied, wiping the rain from his eyes as he pushed his way through the streets close to the market. Come on, he thought. We can’t lose him now.

“Give me a street,” he called to Mia.

“Fourteenth and ninth,” she replied. “I’ll meet you there, cut him off from the backside. He’s trying to get to his private lift.”

“Copy that,” he replied, pulling his gun from his pocket, looping around the streets.

The alleyway before him was empty except for an older man walking with a large basket of clothes. He attempted to slip past him, but the man turned, not noticing Tez, and they both crashed together, falling to the ground.

Tez cursed and jumped to his feet. He glanced at the man, who was holding his leg, face clenched in pain. “Update?” Mia called in the communicator.

He bit his lip and took off, continuing towards the place Mia had indicated. “On my way,” he replied.

A few moments later he arrived at the location, a small alleyway leading up to the wall. Further down, he could see the man they were after. He dashed toward him.

The man glanced behind him, and upon seeing Tez, yelped and increased his speed. Tez cursed, trying to catch up.

As they approached the Wall, Tez could see the lift, a lone guard stood outside. “Sir Wesdon,” the man started as they approached when Mia’s form suddenly appeared, crashing down on top of the man from the roofs above. The man’s skull cracked against the cobbled stone.

In front of Tez, their target came to a halt, frozen between his two hunters. “What do you want?” he asked, backing against the wall behind him. “Do you want money? I can give you money.”

“We don’t care about your money,” Mia said as they approached him. She flicked her lightning baton to life as they cornered him. The rain sparked against it, lighting the dark alley around them.

“What do you want then?” the man asked. “I can give you anything, anything you want.”

“Shut up,” Tez said, kicking the man to the ground.

He stared at the man, then reached up to his mask, removing it. “Do you recognize me?” he asked, glaring at the man.

“Recognize you? I have no idea who you people are,” the man replied incredulously. “Seriously, what do you want from me?”

“We want our parents, you bastard,” Tez said, shoving his gun against the man’s chest.

“Hold on,” Mia said, grabbing his shoulder.

Tez spun around. “What do you mean? He killed our parents. He killed his workers, their families. This man’s a monster, Mia.”

Mia removed her mask, tossing it aside. “Then what does that make us? We aren’t exactly innocent either.”

Tez clenched his teeth, turning back to the man. “He needs to die.”

“Will that really make things better?”

“It will make me feel better,” Tez replied, tightening his hand on the trigger.

Mia set her hand gently on his arm. “No, it won’t.”

“Then why did we come here?” he shouted. “What was the point of all this?”

Mia looked at the man. “I just wanted to see what type of man would kill them,” she sighed. “And it turns out he’s just human, like all of us.”

“We’re monsters, Mia.”

“No, we aren’t,” she said, storing her baton. “We don’t have to be. Let’s just let him go.”

Tez bit his lip as, from the end of the street, the door to the lift opened, revealing a child just younger than he and Mia.

The man seized the moment and dove forward, tackling Tez. Tez shouted, trying to tear the man off of him. He felt the man struggling for Tez’s weapon. Panicking, he pulled the trigger. The man collapsed onto him.

Tez scrambled out from under him staring at the blood coating him. “What have you done,” Mia whispered.

The kid rushed past them, shouting. He knelt next to the man’s side, crying. Tez dropped his gun as Mia grabbed his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Outside the alley, Tez could hear sirens approaching. He felt Mia pulling his arm. “Let’s go,” she said, passing him his mask.

He nodded numbly, slipping it on. “What do we do about him?”

“Forget the kid,” she said, retrieving Tez’s gun from the ground. “We need to go.”

Tez glanced back once more before, together, he and Mia disappeared into the night.

Silence fell and Tez found himself alone in a pool of blood. His shoulder hurt, but he ignored the wound, pulling Mia onto his lap. “Please,” he whispered. “Stay with me, Mia.”

She reached up with her blood-soaked hand, resting it gently against his face. “Just promise me…” she whispered hoarsely.

“No,” Tez said, holding her close. “You can’t go. Don’t leave me alone.”

She shook her head gently. “Forgive them, Tez. Let me go.”

Tez shook his head, throwing tears into the air around them. “Mia, I won’t let you go.”

Mia smiled. “I’m sorry.”

Her hand slid away from his face. He caught it, gently resting it in her lap. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Mia. I’m so sorry.”

Footsteps approached in the silence, waiting outside of Tez’s bedroom. “What do we do?” one of them said.

Tez didn’t need to look to know it was the remnant of the Prince’s group; everyone left after the raid. “Go away,” he said.

“But-”

“Did you not hear me? Nothing matters anymore.”

“It’s been two weeks, Tez. Mia wouldn’t want this.”

“Yeah,” Tez grunted. “I’m sure she wouldn’t want to be dead either.”

“We found who did it,” one of them said.

Tez sat up, narrowing his eyes. “Who?”

One of the men held up a picture. Tez took a deep breath. “You’re sure?”

“Somehow, he found us.”

“Damn that bastard,” Tez said. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

“That will be difficult now,” the man said. “The Wesdon security team never leaves him alone.”

Tez rose from his bed. “It doesn’t matter. I just realized something anyway.”

He walked to his closet, picking out a random shirt and pulling it over his head.

“What’s that?” one of the men asked.

“It’s all a cycle. Screw the kid, I’ll get him later, but right now, we need to start setting our sights higher. The Prince may be gone, but he left a lot behind hidden across our storehouses.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We eliminate this problem at the source,” Tez said, gritting his teeth. “We live in a dead society, one that broke us, turned us into monsters. One that raised us to tear it down, destroy it.” He looked to the edge of the room, to the two masks— his and Mia’s, then to the candle he left burning on the cabinet.

He strode over and lit one of his books, Mia’s favorite, then stuffed it in his bedding. It burst into flames in a moment. The men rushed outside. Once the wood of the shack caught, Tez followed, satisfied. “I’m going to avenge her, and all the others we lost by burning this ruined world to ash, then once I’m done, I’m going to build a new world. A better world. One where we can all be free and happy. One without monsters.”