31 – i – Forewarned is Forearmed

The Tower hopped from rooftop to rooftop, scaled wings letting him glide between the larger gaps. His wings weren’t powerful enough to generate real lift, requiring the use of his claws to scale a larger building. He could grow them larger, but they would have to be an absurd size to actually carry him into the air.

So he clawed up the side of the old, abandoned clinic, pausing only once as he thought he heard a distant cry for help. Listening, he couldn’t hear more than the din of Chicago’s night life. With a shake of his head, he hauled himself up and over the side of the clinic.

A man stood, leaning against the wall next to the roof access door. Half a dozen cigarettes littered the rooftop at his feet, though he didn’t have one in either hand, instead checking the time on a pocket watch pulled from his stuffy three-piece suit. Seeing his attire, trimmed goatee, and slicked short hair gave The Tower a bad feeling.

This guy dressed like The Hanged Man, meaning this was going to be a long night no matter how it ended up.

“The Fixer, right?” The Tower asked, involuntarily straightening his posture, smoothing the tendrils hanging from his face as if they were an overly curly beard.

The pocket watch snapped shut with an absurdly loud click, making The Tower wince. “Correct. And you are late. I thought The Eclipse would prize punctuality a bit more.”

“Ah, yeah man. There was a robbery, and I couldn’t let—”

“A robbery? Are you a superhero?” The Fixer immediately shook his head, hand held up. “Don’t answer. I think I’d rather keep my sanity. Come, we are late enough as it is.”

The Fixer pushed off the wall, throwing open the door down into the building, leaving The Tower staring after him with a frown hidden under his tendrils. The Eclipse’s files on this guy said he was some kind of vagrant, agreeable toward authority but a loner through and through. If this was how he treated all his allies, it wasn’t hard to see why.

He stood at the top of the stairs, pocket watch held out again. “Damnit. Hope she didn’t need that distraction after all.”

The Tower was about to ask what he meant when something caught his ear; metal nails pricked and scraped against brickwork, making him tense. The sound did not approach, however, fading into the distance—disappearing down the stairwell. The Fixer stood in front of the wide-open door, apparently oblivious as he stared at his watch.

“Did you hear that?” The Tower asked, stepping forward to defend the man. He peered down the stairwell with eyes capable of seeing far more infrared and ultraviolet than the average human.

There was nothing there, nothing in the shadows and no sign of any heat left in the air or on the walls.

“Something the matter?” The Fixer asked, slowly placing the watch into his pocket as he scanned the entrance. “Just an empty stairwell.”

He wasn’t lying; The Tower could tell just by the rhythm of his heartbeat and the smell hanging around him—he had a lingering scent of cigarette smoke covering up his natural odor, but it wasn’t strong enough that he had been smoking. Now that he was paying attention, The Tower realized that, The Fixer’s heart hadn’t even skipped a beat when The Tower showed up.

Most people, supernatural or otherwise, took a second glance at The Tower when they first met at the very least.

“Have you met many Leviathans before?” The Tower asked as he ducked through the doorway, still searching for any sign of that skittering, but finding nothing.

“Once,” The Fixer said, following behind The Tower. “A quartet in a small coastal city in Albania, they called themselves Spawn of Bahamut. They were a fairly sedate group, almost lethargic and uninterested in anything, until one of The Mummy’s cult threatened a newly hatched spawnling. They, on their own, wiped out about three hundred cultists, and the cult’s demigod.”

The Tower paused. He didn’t know what Bahamut was, or what a demigod was, at least in this context, but a group of Leviathans piqued his interest. “Don’t suppose you got their number?”

“When I said lethargic, I meant totally. They barely fed themselves; I doubt they would sit up long enough to answer a phone.”

The Tower grumbled under his breath, tendrils warbling as they walked past a large hospital room filled with empty beds. He only knew of three other groups of Leviathans across the world, even with The Eclipse helping him look, and all three had some kind of major malfunction. He would look into this group, but he didn’t doubt The Fixer’s words.

Leviathans seemed to never get along with anyone but a small group of their own—they’d reject even other Leviathans. It did make The Tower wonder what it would be like if he could remember the distant past, but sometimes, he thought it would be better if he never did.

“Through here,” The Fixer said, stopping The Tower from walking past an open door. Beds filled the room, each with thick restraints sitting empty.

He and The Fixer paused abruptly, halfway into the room, as they realized one of the beds wasn’t as empty as the others. A young woman with dyed blonde hair sat back, legs crossed, wearing a short black skirt with a shorter white apron over the front. White gloved fingers blurred over the surface of a phone, tapping away with a well-practiced speed. She didn’t notice their presence, eyes glued to the glowing screen, until The Fixer cleared his throat.

“Ah!” She sprung up, bounding to her feet. Her phone went flying from the sudden motion, but she snatched it out of the air without even looking as she spun around to face The Fixer and The Tower. “You’re here! I was just telling Prescy that he must have gotten the wrong date. Again. Oops!” she said with a cutsey little smile.

Her heart raced, thumping in her chest, but The Tower didn’t get the impression that she was afraid. She had the smell of excitement about her.

“Friend of yours?” The Tower whispered, spreading his arms in preparation for a fight.

“No… but—”

“Yes we are. Don’t lie. I am The Maid, but you can call me Maid since we’re friends,” she said with a flat look at The Tower. “I’m sixteen, single by choice, enjoy blogging, vlogging, writing fiction, and fashion.”

“Uh…”

“Why are you here, Maid?” The Fixer asked, sighing. “We’re already behind schedule.”

“Don’t I know it,” she grumbled with a side-glance toward her phone. “The Castle heard a little whisper through the grapevine that you know how to open this thing? We’ve been trying to crack it open for weeks now, chasing after a… former guest of ours.”

“The Monk?”

“Yeah…” The Maid paused a long moment, looking thoughtful, before shrugging off her thoughts. “The group of new friends approached the side door, peering inside to find it safe and empty, leaving them free to work their magic,” she narrated, though The Fixer and The Tower didn’t follow along, glancing at one another.

“What’s up with this?” The Tower whispered.

“I presume The Prescient told her we’d be here.” The Fixer frowned, scratching his goatee. “The Castle has helped out my—The Agent before, though I’m not sure how trustworthy they are.”

“The Emperor isn’t too fond of The Castle; we’ve got a non-aggression pact, but if they’re interfering—” The Tower mimed cracking his knuckles. “—I can take her down.”

The Maid poked her head out of the doorway, curls in her blonde pigtails lightly bouncing. “Hello? Didn’t you hear me? The group of friends needs to move on so we can start up act two of tonight’s adventure!”

The Tower advanced, shadow elongating behind him, only to freeze in place as he heard it again. That strange, tapping of nails against the hard tile floor. A hiss in the air made him spin around, scanning the room with the ring of eyes around his head. The Maid stood at the door, head poked out with an impatient glare on her face, while The Fixer stood behind, head tilted as he stared at the girl. There was nothing else.

The Fixer shifted, sliding between The Tower and The Maid in a blur, face set as if he made a decision. “No interfactional fights tonight; we’ve got more important work to attend to than petty grievances. The Maid isn’t here to get in our way.”

The Tower barely paid his words any attention, still searching the room. “There’s something else here, besides you and The Maid.” He drew in a breath, trying to catch a scent, and strained his ears, seeking a heartbeat or a breath in an empty spot of air.

The Fixer looked around once, one eyebrow raised, before shaking his head. Ignoring The Tower’s warning, he hurried forward, ducking into the side room with The Maid.

Not willing to be left alone with some unknown, unseen threat, The Tower hastily followed. “I’m not making this up—”

“I’m aware,” The Fixer said, moving to stand at a pedestal covered in rubble. “We knew this place was likely under watch. Better get a peek before any followers show up to threaten us.” He reached out, waving a hand through the space, then walked around the pedestal, circling the room twice before coming to a stop at the far end. “Just as The Daughter said… it’s here, but hidden.”

The Fixer’s arms were gone. They simply were not there anymore. The Tower tensed, already searching for any sign of attack before anyone could react, only to lock into place as something squirmed in The Fixer’s vacant arm socket. Machinery. Cables, wires, metal poles and rods, and little glowing lights stretched from the top of the hole to the bottom, seamless with even the fabric of his shirt. Spindly, jointed limbs stretched out from the vacancies, ripping into the world as they formed. The tipped razors caught on nothing but air as they moved, slicing straight into reality.

Like a hot blade to a thin fabric curtain, part of the world just fell away, opening into a cold, windy world beyond.

“Easier than I thought it’d be,” The Fixer said, cocking his head as he looked at the monstrosity emerging from his shoulders. “The Daughter was right about that too, I suppose.” He sounded disappointed, and still far, far too calm.

“What the fuck?”

“The lanky one revealed his true form,” The Maid said with a somber smile. “A horror so vile that the world itself could not abide its existence.”

“That’s a bit rude,” The Fixer answered, mechanical limbs retracting like an extensible telescope being pressed back together. “Here I am, fighting to save the world, and it throws up obstacles at every step.”

“I’m not the one saying that. It’s the world,” The Maid put her hands up, placating. “It doesn’t know any better.”

The Fixer’s arms simply returned, no flash or molten skin melding over the empty space. He paused, tilting his head as if listening. “Well, maybe the world is a bit distracted with Erika to notice,” he muttered.

“Excuse me, why am I the only one alarmed about what just happened? Nobody going to explain that shit?”

The Maid looked at him with pity. “He’s an Outsider,” she said, as if that explained everything.

The Fixer gave her a look, and then offered The Tower a halfhearted shrug, as if that explained everything. “You’ve surely seen stranger things than robot arms.”

“Those were not robot arms,” The Tower insisted, staring at The Fixer’s body. He had something inside him. Would he even bleed if he was cut? Except, The Tower could hear a heartbeat, thumping away at the same exact pace, ticking like clockwork. “Know what? Fuck it. I don’t think I want to know.”

The Maid skipped ahead of them, prancing off into the snowfield on the other side of the portal. The Fixer didn’t try to stop her, simply following at a more sedate pace.

Wind and snow pelted The Tower as he followed the other two. The scales coating his body didn’t enjoy the sudden shift to below-freezing temperatures, but the temperature couldn’t penetrate further than that. He wasn’t sure how the other two felt; The Fixer adjusted his suit, pulling it a little tighter around his body, and The Maid stood up ahead, hand to her brow like she was trying to peer through the snow.

“I can block some of this weather, if you guys want,” The Tower offered.

“I spent a winter in the Alaskan highlands—this would be considered mild up there.”

“So long as a woman is wearing a proper ensemble, we can venture out into any weather,” The Maid proclaimed, then held up a finger as if a thought occurred to her. “Unless we’re wearing pajamas, in which case we are always cold and need to curl up on a couch with a big fluffy blanket.”

“Right,” The Tower said slowly. “Sure.”

“We shouldn’t linger for any length of time regardless,” The Fixer said, squinting as he started walking around, keeping within sight of the portal but trying to see further into the snow. “I believe I already know what lies in wait for us here. I just want to confirm…”

“There’s heat in that direction,” The Tower said, motioning off to a slight bloom of infrared peeking through the curtain of falling snow. He paused, looking back. “If we leave the portal in this snowstorm, we’ll never find it again. Even our tracks will get filled in.”

The Fixer nodded an agreement, squinting off in the direction that The Tower pointed. “What kind of heat? Like a city, a fire, or a creature?”

The Tower considered for a long while, trying to guess its size and shape through the snow. It stood tall and narrow, more like a person or a building—the distance was hard to determine, so it could either be close and small or large and far. A city would have been more spread out, while a fire would have warbled more. He was about to give an unsatisfying response when he realized that it was slowly becoming clearer. In the short time he had been watching, less snow stood between him and it.

“It’s moving,” The Tower said. “Towards us. Might be person-shaped… unless it’s a really tall building walking around for some reason.”

“You’re mixing up a person and a building?” The Maid asked, waving her hands in front of her in a vague hourglass shape. “Most buildings don’t have a head.”

“Most people would bundle up in this weather, and that blurs the silhouette,” The Tower shot back. “But I’m leaning toward person. They’re getting closer.”

“It isn’t going to be anyone good, right?” The Maid’s eyes twinkled as she lowered her stance. “Their approach was bold, brash even, but foolish all the same. Little did they know, they were about to get dragged off to an interrogation room.”

Seeing her ready to fight, The Tower shifted as well. Dark shadows wrapped around him, forcing the cold air back.

But as it neared, getting close enough for him to see with ordinary sight rather than the blur of infrared, he hesitated. A woman stood in the snow, proud and tall, unaffected by the billowing winds. Her muscular legs and arms were covered in thick green scales, and slit-pupils hid behind circular red lenses. “The Emperor—”

“Butler?” The Maid asked, arms lowering to her side.

The Fixer vanished as a clattering, chittering monstrosity ripped a hole into the world. Plates ground against one another, sliding and expanding outward into a rough sphere covered in cables and metal lattice. The thin spindly limbs from earlier spread out, propping it up like one massive spider with far, far too many legs. A howling, screeching wail came from the very world itself as razor-tipped spears sliced into the air.

“That is not the ones you know,” The Fixer’s tone sounded like the static of a television forced into the shape of words. Three angular heads swiveled around its body, two facing The Emperor, the other facing The Tower. “What I have just done will call for… an opponent. If we are here when it arrives, it will become our opponent.”

The Emperor didn’t care about the bleeding, screaming hole in the world, nor did her eyes shift to look at The Fixer. She continued forward, undaunted by the wind and snow, serene smile drawn across her face.

That smile brought tension back to The Tower’s arms. He backed away a step, glaring, only to realize that The Maid stepped forward—and not with obvious intent to fight. Linking one arm around her waist, The Tower hefted her off her feet and onto his shoulder.

“Hey! What—”

“Creepy spider robot says it’s time to go,” The Tower said, backing away.

“But The Butler—”

“That isn’t The Butler,” The Fixer said. One of the angled faces parted, splitting down the center. Nothing obvious happened from The Tower’s perspective, but The Emperor froze in the distance, one foot raised mid-stride. “That is a Flesh Thief.”

The Fixer moved, many legs pricking at the ground in sharp, jittery motions that nevertheless carried the main metallic body forward in a smooth glide. Not willing to be left behind, The Tower followed with The Maid slung over his shoulder. Neither of them stopped moving once they were through the portal. If The Fixer could close the portal, he didn’t bother trying, scurrying away instead.

The metal body folded into itself, collapsing over and over again in ways that would have intersected with itself if it were any kind of normal metal. The Tower didn’t blink, at least not like humans did, possessing many eyes that never closed at the same time. Yet The Tower still missed the point where the collapsing metal turned back into The Fixer’s suited, goateed form.

The entire building rumbled as a detonation went off somewhere behind him. The Tower stopped, turning back, only for The Fixer to grab his arm. No normal human could have made The Tower move, and The Fixer was no different.

“What was that?” The Tower asked, stopped at the top step leading to the roof.

“That would be the opponent. It won’t be fooled by any illusions, and we don’t want to be here when it finished its work.”

“Put me down!” The Maid chirped, fists lightly thumping against The Tower’s back. “I’m the one who is supposed to rescue monsters from evil princesses, not the other way around!”

“Sorry.” The Tower shrugged her off, bending to drop her safely on the ground.

Another hiss in the air, like a whisper that formed no words, made The Fixer stiffen. This time, The Tower caught the reaction despite his preoccupation with The Maid. A chittering of metal scraping against the brickwork faded off into the distance.

“I need to make preparations,” The Fixer said. Before The Tower could ask what he meant, his form blurred, leaving afterimages behind that quickly faded to nothing. In the blink of an eye, the smear he left behind vanished over the edge of the rooftop.

The Maid, feet now on the ground, turned away from The Tower with a slight harrumph and a faint blush on her cheeks, arms folded. “He just ran off? Weren’t you supposed to collaborate or something?”

The Tower paid her little mind, listening to a shrieking noise echoing up the stairwell. “Damn it. I need to get a containment team on site,” he said, fumbling out his too-tiny phone. He paused, looking down at The Maid. “If you don’t want to be contained, you better make yourself scarce in the next five minutes.”

“What? No. You’re supposed to sit me down in the back of an ambulance, tenderly wrapping a blanket over my shoulders while handing me a coffee or hot chocolate or…” She stared up, looking over The Tower with a frustrated expression. “Gah!” Turning on her heel, she sprinted for the edge of the roof. She jumped into the air, and quickly dropped below the edge of the four story building as gravity took hold.

The Tower hurried over, peering over the edge, but somehow wasn’t surprised when he did not see her splattered against the pavement below, or anywhere else on the street.

Shaking his head, he went back to his phone. “Commander Tips? Sorry about your weekend. Plan C.”

“Understood. What are we dealing with?”

“I…” The Tower glared over the edge of the building. All his allies ran off without explaining anything. “Portal is still open. There is some kind of shapeshifter that might appear as anyone, including The Emperor, so enforce Montgomery Protocol. Another potential hostile just arrived on site. Priority is on the shapeshifters; shut down the portal while ensuring nothing gets through.”

Flashing white and blue lights spun up on the street below as cars maneuvered to better blockade the building. Men in armor and helmets filed out, barging into the clinic.

“Did you happen to see anyone jump off the roof in the last minute?”

“No sir.”

“Figures.”