“Oh horseapples… Is Frigid going to be okay?” Twilight stopped writing in her notebook and looked up. “I mean, I know he’s going to live, but this doesn’t take him out for a long time does it? It sounds pretty serious. At least, that’s what I think. Is it?”
“Oh don’t you worry, Twilight,” Morning Blade chuckled. “Frigid’ll be back. Just like High Noon had said. Better than ever, well…” A shadow passed over her face. “At least for another while more.”
“Oh… We’re getting close, huh?” Twilight sighed and tapped her a hand on a knee.
“Yes…” Morning pulled at her braid. “I guess we should continue. No use dwindling on the past. Are you ready for more, princess?”
“Lead on, Morning.” Twilight managed a smile and readied her notes.
Mahogany Wood entered the labs, Crescent Wing and Talon following behind him. The scientists stood up for him as he walked in, his hands behind his back, heading straight for his brother.
“Timber,” Mahogany cleared his throat. “Everything is well, I am told?”
“That’s right,” Timber nodded excitedly, pointing to a pile of metal by one of the computer tables. “Those soldiers you sent me sure know their work.”
“Of course they do!” Talon bellowed, crossing his arms across his chest. “Dragon Unit does not disappoint!”
“Unfortunately…” Everyone turned around to see Wolfgang entering the room, a small smile across his face, twirling a knife between his fingers. “Only Pressure Point made it back. Smokey was killed by the Assassins today.”
Mahogany stood silent for a moment before lifting his chin and returning his focus to the machine parts. "An unfortunate casualty in our ongoing war. Wouldn't you say so, Wolfgang?"
"Oh, I couldn't agree more, chairman," Wolfgang rubbed his gray hands together. "Only the strongest survive. That's the rule of nature."
“Well said... For a killer.” Timber pushed a lock of brown hair out of his face and he walked over to one of the laptops near the parts. He tapped a few buttons before turning the screen towards his brother and his company. “As I was about to say, when this machine has been completed, we should be able to find someone in the city with enough energy to wield the artifact. There is a catch though...”
“Good,” Mahogany nodded. “But what catch? If it is within my power as Grand Master, it shall be no problem.”
Timber paused as he thought of a way to put his words safely. “The machine will need a power source. In order to find people with the correct… wavelength, we will need the artifact itself, powering the machine.”
“You want the artifact in the machine?” Talon quizzed as he walked over to the pile of metal, easily picking one up with just one hand. “What if it fails? What if there is a malfunction? What will happen to the artifact?”
“We’ll have to run some preliminary tests before we put the artifact in the machine,” Timber explained to them. “We’re not going to risk damaging it.”
Mahogany brought himself into deep thought as he brother continued to speak. The artifact was their only source of bending the world to their favour. To bring order out of the chaos. If there was a chance the machine could damage the artifact, Mahogany wasn’t going to take it, but at the same time, if there was a chance the machine could locate someone that could effectively use the artifact, then he would do it. It was a gamble.
“Chairman?” Crescent Wing called him out of his trance, pointing over to Timber, showing them a screen full of data and charts. “Your brother would like to know your choice.”
Mahogany rubbed at his eyebrows and sighed. “You may use the artifact. Without any other leads on using it, this is our best bet to fulfilling our goals. Do it.”
“Sounds good,” Wolfgang licked his lips and threw the knife up to the ceiling, lodging it between two of the panels. “So you’re finally moving forward with your big plans. Congrats. So when can I get to killing more Assassins? That was what we were promised, yes?”
Crescent Wing eyed the killer wearily, but Mahogany Wood moved past him and stood before the killer. “You’ll have your chance, Wolfgang, but you will wait. You remember that you are working for me. I will issue the order when I see fit. Unless you have a problem?”
“Oh, no problems, chairman,” Wolfgang took a few steps back, but maintained the smile on his face. “I will wait. Although, I believe I will grow restless, and you know… accidents might happen. Civilians, guards… scientists…”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Wolfgang?” Timber stabbed daggers at the killer with his eyes.
“I will be taking my leave, then.” After retrieving his knife by standing on the nearby table and dirtying its surface with his shoes, Wolfgang bowed and headed backwards, his head towards the floor until he passed the door, turning around and heading back to his designated area.
“Why do we still keep him, brother?” Timber made sure that the man was gone before asking that question. “One day, it’ll come back to take a bite out of us.”
“He might not be the soundest person, Timber, but he gets the job done,” Mahogany smirked at the side of his mouth. The chairman turned and walked to the metal parts, putting a hand on one, feeling it's cold surface. “When can you start construction?”
“Soon, Mahogany. We’ll just need to make sure we have the right tools and all the required parts, and we can begin.”
“Excellent.” Mahogany headed out of the labs, his bodyguard and Talon accompanying him. This time, the Assassins had failed, and if the machine worked, they would never succeed ever again.
It was just after midnight when the medical wing’s door at the Trottingham bureau swung open, its oiled hinges not making even the slightest creak as a thin figure slid into the room. The door clicked shut, plunging the space into near darkness.
The figure kept low in a half-crouch, blending in with the uneven shadows on the wall seamlessly. It was a cloudy night and the scant few rays of moonlight that seeped in through the shuttered windows would have reduced all but the most skilled Assassins to blundering around in the dark like a blind man.
The sounds of five people breathing heavily resonated around, and the figure lifted its head up and sniffed once, twice, three times in quick succession before darting off to the patient lying in the third bed from the left. A hand played wraith-like over the sheets and lifted them.
Frigid Night stirred in his sleep, unaware of the dark shape looming over his slumbering form, its fingers dipping into a pocket and bringing out a tiny glass vial of green, bubbling liquid.
Slowly, tenderly, Frigid’s shirt was peeled back to expose the wound that Pressure Point had given him. The figure sniffed once more and hooked a fingernail around the linen and pulled, ripping the bandages off the Assassin.
Finally, the vial’s cap was unscrewed and its contents were poured, drop by drop, onto the incision. The skin hissed and smoked as each drop sank into the injured tissue, leaving the surrounding area raw and red.
The shadowed one eyed its work with satisfaction before tucking the empty vial away and stealing back out the door, but not without first planting a kiss on the sleeping Frigid’s face.
“Get well soon, my dear. I know you love me.”
Dust Fencer and Rose Petal arrived back at the bureau, their attires covered in dirt, sweat, and blood, the moon already at its optimal altitude to light up the dark streets of Trottingham. Most of the Assassins had already gone to sleep, having only two of them on guard duty to welcome Dust and Rose back.
“You two were gone long,” Wreckhouse said as he stood up and shook his partner awake.
“Huh?” Tangent lifted her sleepy head and looked around frantically, her eyelids half closed. “Are we under attack?”
“It’s alright, kid,” Rose chuckled as she put a hand on the Assassin’s head. “Just us.”
“Well, we better head over to the Mentor,” Dust reminded his partner. “We have a report to give.”
“This late at night?” Wreckhouse asked, frowning as Tangent started dozing off.
“That’s how it is,” Dust shrugged. “One day you’ll be coming back this late, and you’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Alright,” Wreckhouse nodded, one eye starting to close. He quickly hit Tangent on the side of her head to get her up.
“See you tomorrow morning,” Rose waved as she followed Dust up the staircase. “Try not to sleep for your whole shift.”
They soon arrived at the Mentor's office, quietly knocking on the door, just in case they were resting. They heard Star Lance before they saw him, the blue-skinned Assassin opening the door for them. As soon as he saw who they were, he loosened his grumpy expression and stepped outside to join them.
"You're back pretty late this time," Star Lance grunted. "Mentor's already asleep."
"We won't keep you long, Star Lance," Rose started. "The Templars are building something. They traveled to a warehouse and some kind of lab to gather scraps of metal."
"Building something?" Star Lance rubbed at his chin. "What else did you learn? Do you know what the machine can do?"
Dust shook his head. "We didn't find out. The Templars outplayed us this time. They've upgraded their gear. Without Trueshot, we had no way of getting close enough."
Star Lance sighed. He folded his arms and looked at the ground. "Blast. So we know they're making something... But we don't know what exactly."
"One more thing," Dust raised a finger. "If they had that many guards, then it must be a very important project they have there."
“Yes…” Star Lance thought about it. “What did these guards look like? Perhaps we can find out where the Templars get their men.”
“They wore leather jackets and motorcycle helmets,” Dust described. “Not like any guards I’ve seen, and they carry assault rifles. That’s a step up from what the Templars usually throw at us.”
“Leather jackets…”
“Might be military,” Rose shrugged, throwing out her suggestions. “Templars have men from all over the place. That’ll explain the sudden spike in weapons recently. They must be getting them from a military base or something.”
"Yes, of course. That makes sense..." Star Lance agreed. "Well, good work. Go get some rest. You've had a long day. I'll let Mentor know when she wakes up. See what she has to say about all of this. Stay safe."
Dust nodded and steered Rose back as the Master Assassin headed back into the room. "See you tomorrow, Star Lance."
"Should we check on Frigid before retiring for the night?" Rose asked, worried about the younger Assassin. "It sounded pretty serious."
Dust shook his head and kept walking. "It's late. If it's still serious, we better let him rest. Patch will have patched him up just fine." The blonde haired Assassin laughed at his small joke.
“You know, you’ve already used that joke before?” Rose raised her eyebrow and smiled at the corner of her mouth.
“Did I?” Dust asked innocently as they headed up towards their rooms.
“Totally,” Rose jokingly punched his arm. “I’m sure Frigid will be fine, though. He’s a strong boy. He’ll make it.”
The first thing Frigid noticed when he awoke was that it was daytime. The second thing was Dr. Patch leaning over his bed, staring fixedly at his abdomen. Fear began to seep into his brain, doing the work of several pints of black coffee all at once. There was no reason for the doctor to be examining him like this… unless there was something wrong.
“Doc?” Frigid said, trying to get a look at what Patch was eyeing with such apprehension.
Dr. Patch shook her head and jerked back to reality. “Frigid?” she said. “Have you seen this?”
The bedridden Assassin steeled himself for the worst. “How bad is it, doc?”
“Bad? What do you mean?”
Frigid raised an eyebrow. “The injury…? You know? The one that put me here. How bad is it?”
The head medic’s face lit up in comprehension and a small laugh escaped her mouth. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”
Frigid looked down at his own abdomen, expecting to see some kind of mutation on his cut, or at least just a lot of blood. What he did not expect to see was a stretch of unblemished skin where there had been a stab wound the night before. It was as though he had never been wounded at all, and as his fingers probed the area, he almost wondered if he had ever been hurt at all.
“Uhh… doc?” Frigid just had to ask. “Am I… dreaming?” Hadn’t the doctor told him just yesterday that he’d be out of action for weeks at least?
“If you’re dreaming, then wake me up too.” Patch looked positively flummoxed and she prodded him with a finger. “It’s… perplexing, to say the least.”
She continued to look at it before pulling the pencil from its perch atop her ear and writing down some notes on her clipboard. Frigid tested his abdominal movement, turning his body from side to side and seeing how far he could bend himself. The pain he expected never arrived, raising more questions in his and Patch’s minds.
“No pain?” Patch watched as Frigid swung his legs off the bed and shook his head. “Not even the slightest? Amazing… It’s really as if you were never injured from the start… I’d like to run more tests if it's okay with you?”
“It’s fine, doc,” Frigid said, also wanting to know more about his miraculous healing.
The door opening drew both patient and doctor’s attention to it as Mirror Match and High Noon stood by the entrance, surprised looks on their faces.
“Hilly billy goat gruff’s beard…” High Noon muttered as he pulled his hat off his head.
“Friggy?” Mirror quickly ran ahead of the cowboy and threw her arms around her partner. “Y-you’re all better!” After releasing him from her grasp, she looked down at body and touched it. “It’s gone! Completely!”
“Yeah,” Frigid nodded and looked at the doctor. “We have no idea what happened, but I feel like it was never there from the beginning. I can move about just fine.”
“Are you free to leave?” Mirror beamed at him. She looked at the still puzzled Patch expectantly.
“Um… well I guess if there’s nothing wrong with you, then you can go,” the doctor admitted. “Come back immediately if you feel even the slightest change, though. I still don’t know how you healed so quickly. And Mirror,” she called to the retreating trio. “Take good care of him, okay?”
“Oh, don’t worry, doctor,” Mirror Match purred with half-lidded eyes. “I’ll make sure to.”
Mahogany Wood sat in his office, checking out the usual reports from the other members of the board. To keep up his facade as chairman of the Board of Education, he had to make sure everyone performed their roles according to the system, including himself. He read through a piece of paper, detailing how a boy in Coltorado had somehow lodged a pen in a projector, causing a malfunction and a fire, destroying part of the classroom.
He shook his head at the ridiculous things kids do in school. Chaos. That was why he was a Templar. To bring order into the chaotic world. A world where there was no conflict. Where everyone thought on the same wavelength. Where everything would be just the way he wanted it to be.
Mahogany remembered what his father had told him before he was inducted into the Order.
Son, the world is broken, and it’s our job to fix it and make it right.
That was the day his father had brought him down into the secret vault under his family home to show him the artifact. At first, he didn’t understand what the little golden sphere was capable of, but after witnessing its power to change the ideals of people around him, Mahogany knew his goal in life. He was to bring order to the world.
Mahogany opened his drawer and pulled out a well cleaned tomahawk, with a black rubber grip and a small Templar cross on its steel. After arriving at the age of ten, Mahogany had begun training with his father, learning how to handle different kinds of weapons, although the tomahawk seemed to fit him more than anything. In his earlier years, he could pin a chicken to the barn door with a single throw from yards away. Age had cut his strength and aim over the years, but he found himself to still have some skill with the light axes.
He spun the weapon on a finger, still able to balance it without much difficulty, before flicking it up into the air. As gravity brought it back down, Mahogany skillfully grabbed the weapon by the handle and threw it as hard as he could towards the carved wooden door, embedding the weapon and splintering a part of the door.
“Still got it.”
“Good throw, sir.” Crescent Wing left the chairman’s side and retrieved the axe, returning it to his master.
“Thank you, Crescent,” Mahogany replied as he put the tomahawk back in its place. “You know… thinking back to my younger days… It makes me think of family. Something that has been diminishing over the years because of those pesky Assassins. Now, only Timber, Lumberjack and I are all that’s left of the esteemed Wood family. My father is probably laughing at me now. I’m not as capable a leader as he was. I can’t even keep my family safe.”
“That’s not true, sir,” Crescent Wing shook his head. “Grand Master Aspen was a great leader, but you’re just as good in your own way, sir. You’ve successfully led us through all these years, and we’ve finally got a lead on the artifact. The Templars have been trying to find out how to use it since the old days.”
“Oh, yes, Crescent. The old days. I don’t even remember how long it's been since we got it from the Assassins,” Mahogany chuckled. “I wish I was there to see their faces when we pried the orb from their lifeless hands, but no matter. We might just have a breakthrough here.”
“That’s right sir. Through your lead, the Order might finally have what they’ve been looking for all these generations.”
Mahogany smiled and nodded in agreement. Things were changing. If he could learn the power of the artifact, the world would bend to the Templars. “Thank you, Crescent. You’ve always got my back. I’m grateful for your service.”
“It is my pleasure to be serving the Grand Master,” Crescent bowed with a smile.
Oak, Hemlock, Ash, and Redwood. Mahogany will remember his fallen brothers and sister and what the Assassins had done to his family.
“I’m going to right the world, Crescent. I'm going to lead it into a new golden age.”