The Extorters

***

Turning back time for a while, James and his daughter stood on the porch that was half lit by the bright moonlight.

“Has he gone to sleep?”

“Yes!”

“Good! Call Danny for me!”

“Even him? He’s done nothing wrong. Why are you doing this to anyone that comes across this place?”

“I don’t remember asking you your opinion. Now go!”

Paula quietly went into the house and lightly knocked onto Danny’s door.

“Danny! Dad has called for you!”

There was no reply.

“Danny, wake up!”

While slightly groaning, he lifted himself up while rubbing his eyes.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Shh…. Make sure that Phillip doesn’t hear you. Dad has called you for that, you know, that.”

“Got you. Ahh! I hate it when I’m not myself!”

“Good luck in there, brother. I’m sure one day, you will resist his control.”

“Yeah! One day, we shall be free. And when we prevail, we—”

Suddenly, Danny stopped talking, stood up, went towards the door and exited the room.

Paula’s smile then slowly changed to a frown as her eyes began to tear. While biting her lower lip, she was able to suppress her emotions.

“Danny, need you to go to the Extorters and alert them that we have something for them. The price, 200,000 Rubics worth of silver.”

Danny, without saying a word, nodded his head and leapt up with outstanding force in the sky landing miles and miles away from where they were. He repeated the same thing after landing until he was no longer present in sight.

“That never gets old, does it?”

James smiled and looked at Paula.

Paula simply put on a distinct smile.

“All I wish for is your death!”

“Haha! Keep on wishing!”

James laughed as he entered the house through the door.

Paula’s sarcastic smile disappeared from her face letting out an enormous breath of air.

“I’ll just go to sleep. But no I’ll wait on the porch to see this beautiful scenery, before seeing the one of tomorrow.”

Instead of entering the door, she decided to move to the side on the porch to sit on the bench.

Hardly had she sat down when Phillip passed through the door at a tremendous speed, rushing towards the bushes. Surprised, Paula almost let out a scream but managed to contain herself.

“What in the world is he doing here? He’s going to the bushes? What for~Ooooh! Oh oh!”

Paula, in the middle of her thoughts realized his intention and politely looked away. After a while, Phillip moved out of the bushes as Paula kept her gaze to the surroundings that were radiant with the brilliant moon light. Turning to look at him, she gave a forced smile.

“Hello there, can’t sleep!” Phillip asked.

***

“What I’m I seeing here, Cott? I thought you said that he was safe and sound? We don’t buy the dead. What for? Burry them?”

Teeg with an annoying voice shouted at James.

Frank, touching his nose, left the room to wait from outside..

James was as silent as Danny. A confused face? An angry one maybe! Possibly shocked! That’s right. It was a concoction of all those making his expression incredibly priceless.

“Ahh! We’re done here! Cott, but I can’t go home empty handed. So I’m getting some produce from your farm as an apology.”

James was confused like never before. The main question was who killed the young traveler?

As Teeg and Frank were escorted into the barn to get out some sacks of food. After loading them onto their horses, the two men raced their way out of the place.

“We’ll be back, Cott?” Teeg shouted as Cott waved his palm towards them.

“Paula!!!”

 James angrily called for the teenage girl in the living room. For some reason he believed that Paula was the one that caused all this fiasco, making him miss a chance at that large amount of money.

“Paula!!!”

“Coming.”

From the direction of the kitchen, Paula slowly approached James possibly wondering why the man had an incredibly large temper.

“Why did you kill him?”

“Kill who?”

“Don’t play games with me lass!”

James grabbed Paula’s slender neck with his strong muscular arms tightly. Paula couldn’t breathe as she placed her thin hands on his to place an effort, however small it was, to resist.

Danny suddenly rushed in after hearing all the shouting that their father had been making.

“Dad, what are you doing? Put her down! You’re going to kill her!”

Danny said as he overwhelmed James in strength removing the gruesome restraints from Paula’s neck who was then on her knees coughing uncontrollably.

“Which other person would have killed Phillip except for her?”

Silence enveloped the room as soon as James stopped talking. Paula’s eyes were very wide open with shock and she couldn’t move an inch. Danny was just as shocked.

“Dead, what do you mean dead? I surely left him only tied up. There’s no way that could’ve killed him.”

“No, he was stabbed…”

Danny’s eyes widened in horror as he waited for what he would say next.

“...he had an x-shaped wound on his chest.”

James finished the sentence silently.

Not believing what he had heard, Danny rushed upstairs and opened the door to his room.

There was even a greater surprise waiting for them.

***

“Let’s move on, old man. What are you thinking about?”

Frank, looking behind, shouts at Teeg whose horse was moving rather slowly. They were headed to their base far south of Cott’s house via the village of Thorne.

“This is odd. I wonder why James would play a prank on us, the Extorters. He secured some merchandise and then killed him!”

“Come on! Just stop thinking about that. The fact is that they wasted our time going all the way there. But why do you suppose that he’s the one that killed him?” Frank inquired.

“This one there’s no doubt, he’s the one. I can never forget that x-shaped cut.”

“Do you know him, old man?”

“Yeah! It’s been a while now but we used to fight together. We went on our own paths after another comrade of ours died.”

“Sorry to hear about that!”

“It’s okay! It was a long time ago.”

Teeg rushed his horse to move side by side with Frank.

“Frank, I want you to be careful around James. He’s a viper. Never get on his bad side, son, especially after I leave.”

“Leave! On a vacation!”

“No! Next spring, I’m thinking of retirement. I want to go to the fishing town in the west of Baizefield, build a small cabin and take my grandkids there to live with me.”

“I didn’t know that you had grandkids! You really don’t say anything like that around me!”

Teeg looked at Frank with a smirk.

“Well, I had no reason to!”

“Damn you, geezer.”

“Haha.”

As they enjoyed their laugh together, a loud bang was heard in the direction that they were heading to.

“That’s from the direction of the village of Thorne.” Teeg shouted as he sped forward on his horse. Frank followed closely from behind.

Reaching a cliff on the edge of the village, they witnessed monsters of every kind, snakes, goblins, bears, and many others knocking down people’s houses and destroying their fields as well.

“How horrible this is!” Teeg said. “Where’s the band, with them here it would be nothing but a breeze to eliminate these unsightly beings.”

“I don’t know. It’s possible that they haven’t heard of the invasion yet. So what now? Should we engage?”

“No, that’s suicidal! I’ll do it myself!”

“Hello? That’s suicidal!” Frank replied while mimicking Teeg. “Has old age finally gotten to you?”

“Think, Frank! We need our allies in this case. I’ll engage them here while you go to base and call for backup.”

“O~oh! Got you! Don’t die on me old man!”

“Peace on your way young lad!”

Frank turned his horse towards his right and headed towards the base as Teeg descended to the center of the village where he had seen the most commotion.

“There are far too many people here. They were cornered by the monsters and they have no choice but to fight them. The situation here is quite precarious.” Teeg thought as he assessed the situation.

Without delay Teeg shouted towards the villagers, “No need to worry we shall make it out alive.”

Not waiting for their response, he slams both of his fists onto the ground causing two parallel walls to emerge with passage in between.

“This will lead you some distance away from the village. Get towards the caves farther south and wait there until the situation subsides.”

“What about you, Sir?” Some random old man asked him.

“Don’t worry about me. My comrades are coming.”

Teeg waited for everyone to enter the passage before sealing its entrance.

“Now I can go wild!”

Releasing a great amount of energy into the surroundings, Teeg pushed out his arms, slammed them on the ground and shouted;

“Earth- Bound!”

Pillars rock emerged from the ground underneath the monsters binding them up and making them immobile.

“One with Earth!”

The pillars then squeezed the monsters to death and after went back to the ground, taking the monsters along.

“Now onto the next part!”

Barely had he said that when all the monsters diminished in height until they dissolved in their own shadows that disappeared as well.

“What in the world? Don’t tell me, they were being controlled?”

“Yes, darling! Surely they were!”

A female’s voice replied to his question and on turning back, he angrily muttered to himself;

“Damn! Today is just not my day!”