Toby hurried after the fleeing Eugene. He had rushed over to Norman’s place of work as soon as he got the text, not that he needed it. Toby had been tracking Eugene’s trail ever since he had learned that Eugene was in the city and had just realized where Eugene was heading. Not that it should have been much of a surprise.
It galled Toby that he needed to protect Norman until he fixed his current situation but he still needed the man alive. He was meant to arrest criminals not work with them. But Toby would continue to do his part to keep Norman safe, at least until he held up his part of the bargain. Once Norman fixed him up, he would take the man into custody and find an intact United States criminal justice system that would take the man off his hands. Then he could finally go back to figuring out how to deal with Sin and the other issues that blew up in his face.
Toby would reevaluate his plans for Sin but he needed patience for that. Thankfully, Toby didn’t need to practice patience at the moment as he fired off two rounds down the alley. He heard a grunt as Eugene was hit but the man was strong enough to take a few bullets and not go down. Toby ducked behind a parked vehicle as Eugene returned fire.
The bullets struck the vehicle and Toby darted back out, racing to catch up with the much faster man. If it wasn’t for the fact that the man was missing an entire arm, Toby would never have considered chasing Sin’s fixer like this. Going toe to toe with a physical classer when you weren’t one yourself was a bad idea.
Toby dove out of the way as Eugene ripped a tire off of a nearby parked car and hurled it at him. The tire sailed through where he was standing a moment ago and Toby fired off three more shots, hitting Eugene at least once more before the man ducked around another corner and out of sight.
“Shit!” Toby scrambled to his feet and ran to the corner, keeping his gun pointed at where Eugene vanished.
He slowly edged his way to the intersection, careful to keep as much distance from the blind corner as possible to avoid being jumped. He needn’t have worried, Eugene was gone when he arrived. Toby cursed under his breath, he could see a trail of blood but it just stopped. Toby didn’t know if this was simply because the man vanished or the damn healing potions Norman had outfitted Sin with.
With the trail going cold, Toby took the time to reload his gun. Then he glanced at his phone to check the time. He had another five minutes before he could reuse his tracking skill. It wasn’t all that useful of a skill as it only lasted a minute and he needed to know where his target had been before he could enable it. But in this instance, it should help him run down Eugene.
***
Eugene hocked a glob of blood from his mouth, using his sleeve to wipe his chin. Or so he tried, forgetting his arm had rotted off thanks to that damn necromancer. He clenched his remaining hand and slammed it against the building wall, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in his wake.
In the many years that Eugene had worked for Mr. Sin, he had never questioned the man's motives or orders until today. Eugene had tried to argue that just killing the necromancer was the best approach but Sin had been adamant that he wanted to know why the man had betrayed him. What he thought he would gain by killing Sin off. It was pure vanity on Sin’s part and it disgusted Eugene. He still complied with the order because he was a loyal soldier and Sin was the man that had saved him from a life on the streets. The man had been good to him, up until the fall, but lately, Sin seemed to be letting this newfound strength push him to rash actions.
The attack on the witch Gail was a good example. Had they gathered all of their forces from Colorado, they could have easily taken the woman down. But Sin hadn’t wanted to wait. And it cost their organization a lot of lives. Then there were all of the resources spent trying to apprehend this damn necromancer. That debacle left another fourteen of their people dead, scattered across the state.
Magic users were just too unpredictable, his missing arm was proof of that. Eugene had only himself to blame there. He should have suspected that the necromancer was up to something. Sin had warned him to be wary around the man, that he wasn’t what he seemed. But Eugene had let his previous interactions with the necromancer cloud his better judgment. He should have just shot the man and reported to his boss that he wasn’t able to get a confession from him. But he followed orders like the good little soldier he was and now he was suffering the consequences of his actions.
The failure had cost him his arm, which was not regrowing despite the healing potion, a healing potion that had come from the same damn necromancer. Eugene couldn’t discount that as another clever ploy by Norman. The man was a devious planner. That was clear by the trap Eugene had stumbled into. And now that Toby fellow had somehow been able to track him down, despite the traceless item Eugene possessed. There were too many coincidences, he knew he was missing something.
Eugene could feel the healing power of the potion wearing off as it dealt with the bullet wounds. He couldn’t stick around with people hounding his every move.
Eugene had failed in his mission and his targets would now be on high alert, it was time to cut and run. He needed time to heal and reassess the situation.
What was abundantly clear was that the necromancer was growing in power and would need to be dealt with as soon as possible. Eugene could probably still kill him but failing a second time was not an option. Not for him and certainly not in Sin’s eyes. He swallowed his pride and started making his way toward a new destination. There was no worry about Norman escaping, Eugene had marked him for death with another skill. It would ensure he would always know where the man was until one of them was dead. What he needed was help.
He made his way to an exit portal that the gron had set up. Eugene and the upper echelons of Sin’s organization knew about the gron city. They also knew how to come and go with impunity, a fact they hid from others that stumbled into the city. The information had allowed them to spread to three other disconnected areas of the earth during the last few years. The portal Eugene was heading toward did not lead back to Colorado. Eugene needed help but not just any help, he needed magical help. And he knew just the right psychopath for the job.
A human compliance officer stepped out of an alcove with his hand out to stop Eugene. Eugene glanced at the hand, then glared at the man.
“I work for Sin.”
“I know who you are,” the man stated flatly. “You were told to keep your activities in the city quiet. Why am I getting reports of gunfire and of a one-armed man running around causing chaos?”
Eugene tried to slap the man’s hand away, but the man’s arm blurred faster than Eugene could react and was back in place. Eugene sneered at the speed-focused man. They may be fast, but they weren’t faster than a bullet. He could snap the man in half with ease if he got ahold of him.
“Things didn’t go as planned. The target is more dangerous than was realized. Now, are you going to let me through? Or do I need to make you?”
The officer smiled. “Oh, I would love to see you try. I wonder how your boss would react to losing his spot on the council due to the actions of his flunky?”
Eugene stiffened at the threat. The council was the joint criminal enterprise that had cropped up amongst the reconnected human states. It consisted of a province in China, a part of Brazil, and New York City. With each area having its own member on this council. Sin might be big in Colorado, but he was the small fish in this game and the other three never let his boss forget his place. The only reason the other members hadn’t taken steps to remove Sin was the difficulty of moving large forces across gron territory. The gron might be slow to react to change, but they couldn’t be underestimated.
“That’s what I thought,” the man’s smile grew even wider as Eugene backed down. “This is the last warning you are going to get. Deal with your issue quietly or else.” The man stepped aside and motioned Eugene forward. “Have a pleasant day, citizen.”
Eugene scowled as he stomped forward and through the teleporter.
***
Brigette had not been happy to find herself in court-ordered manual labor. She hadn’t come to this stupid area expecting there to be an advanced civilization hiding in plain sight. Then she had been processed like some refugee and assigned a job she didn’t want to do.
Perhaps she had been a bit too shortsighted when she tried to track down someone that might have been able to help her back home. After not finding the man in town after the Gail takeover, she had been forced to expand her search with the sparse information she had on him.
That information eventually led her to the northern border of Colorado, where she crossed and was teleported to Grothlosburg.
Despite the Orwellian nature of the country, Brigette found it fascinating and it seemed to work well for the very strict gron as seen by their advanced technology and magic. Unfortunately, all of that was ruined by the fact that she was stuck here breaking rocks for five days. Her hands were blistered, her feet were sore, and her arms and back ached something terrible.
She wasn’t alone in her misery. There were other humans, jorik, and species she wasn’t able to name there with her. All had been labeled rule breakers and agitators by the gron. She noticed there were no gron stuck breaking rocks. But after meeting with a few of the gron, she understood why. If she bent one over, she was sure she would find a wooden pole holding them up.
The buzzer sounded and she nearly cried in joy. Her punishment was finally over. She levered herself up, wincing as her back let out an audible crack as it protested the movement. Then she handed in her work token. The gron behind the counter stamped it complete and motioned for her to step inside an alcove.
She did so and was immediately whisked away. When she appeared at the new teleport platform, she had to steady herself. She still wasn’t used to the teleporters after a week of having to use them. They always left her a bit dizzy and disoriented.
“Ah, Miss Brigette, it’s good to finally make your acquaintance.”
Brigette looked up to see an immaculately dressed gron with a smile on his face. “Um, do I know you?”
The man chuckled. “I would be surprised if you did. No, I know a mutual friend of yours. As you were getting out today, I figured I could arrange a meeting for you two as I was heading over there myself.”
“And you are?”
“Oh, where are my manners? I am Barthus, but you might know me as the gron President.”
Brigette's eyes widened and she tried to dust herself off before sticking out a hand. “I’m so sorry, Mr. President. I did not recognize you.”
Barthus kept smiling as he shook her extended hand. “No need for that. I prefer to be as informal as possible. Now, shall we go, or would you prefer to go someplace and clean up first?”
Brigette looked down at her clothes, only now realizing just how dingy and worn they were from a week of hard labor. “Perhaps a bath and a change of clothes?”
The President led her to her assigned quarters where her backpack and items had been left before she was carted off for mandatory labor camp. She thought it was a bit weird that the President was the one showing her around, so she decided to ask him about it.
“As I said before we gron aren’t much on pomp and ceremony. If I am capable of doing something, then why shouldn’t I? It’s much easier to do something myself than it is dictating my orders to an aide.”
She supposed it made sense from what little she knew of the gron society. It just felt so alien and weird to her based on her experience with human politics.
After cleaning up, Brigette followed the President across the city to another building that looked exactly like her apartment. She was still feeling the effects of the teleporter when they arrived outside a door.
The President knocked on the door and waited politely.
Brigette let her mind wander as they waited. She wasn’t sure how the person she was here to find had learned about her arrival, but she was glad they had. She wanted to get this business out of the way and return home as soon as possible. She would need to ask the President about how to do that last part.
The door opened and the President walked inside a small apartment that was an exact copy of hers, only in a different orientation. When she looked up, she froze.
“Norman! What are you doing here?”
Toby hurried after the fleeing Eugene. He had rushed over to Norman’s place of work as soon as he got the text, not that he needed it. Toby had been tracking Eugene’s trail ever since he had learned that Eugene was in the city and had just realized where Eugene was heading. Not that it should have been much of a surprise.
It galled Toby that he needed to protect Norman until he fixed his current situation but he still needed the man alive. He was meant to arrest criminals not work with them. But Toby would continue to do his part to keep Norman safe, at least until he held up his part of the bargain. Once Norman fixed him up, he would take the man into custody and find an intact United States criminal justice system that would take the man off his hands. Then he could finally go back to figuring out how to deal with Sin and the other issues that blew up in his face.
Toby would reevaluate his plans for Sin but he needed patience for that. Thankfully, Toby didn’t need to practice patience at the moment as he fired off two rounds down the alley. He heard a grunt as Eugene was hit but the man was strong enough to take a few bullets and not go down. Toby ducked behind a parked vehicle as Eugene returned fire.
The bullets struck the vehicle and Toby darted back out, racing to catch up with the much faster man. If it wasn’t for the fact that the man was missing an entire arm, Toby would never have considered chasing Sin’s fixer like this. Going toe to toe with a physical classer when you weren’t one yourself was a bad idea.
Toby dove out of the way as Eugene ripped a tire off of a nearby parked car and hurled it at him. The tire sailed through where he was standing a moment ago and Toby fired off three more shots, hitting Eugene at least once more before the man ducked around another corner and out of sight.
“Shit!” Toby scrambled to his feet and ran to the corner, keeping his gun pointed at where Eugene vanished.
He slowly edged his way to the intersection, careful to keep as much distance from the blind corner as possible to avoid being jumped. He needn’t have worried, Eugene was gone when he arrived. Toby cursed under his breath, he could see a trail of blood but it just stopped. Toby didn’t know if this was simply because the man vanished or the damn healing potions Norman had outfitted Sin with.
With the trail going cold, Toby took the time to reload his gun. Then he glanced at his phone to check the time. He had another five minutes before he could reuse his tracking skill. It wasn’t all that useful of a skill as it only lasted a minute and he needed to know where his target had been before he could enable it. But in this instance, it should help him run down Eugene.
***
Eugene hocked a glob of blood from his mouth, using his sleeve to wipe his chin. Or so he tried, forgetting his arm had rotted off thanks to that damn necromancer. He clenched his remaining hand and slammed it against the building wall, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in his wake.
In the many years that Eugene had worked for Mr. Sin, he had never questioned the man's motives or orders until today. Eugene had tried to argue that just killing the necromancer was the best approach but Sin had been adamant that he wanted to know why the man had betrayed him. What he thought he would gain by killing Sin off. It was pure vanity on Sin’s part and it disgusted Eugene. He still complied with the order because he was a loyal soldier and Sin was the man that had saved him from a life on the streets. The man had been good to him, up until the fall, but lately, Sin seemed to be letting this newfound strength push him to rash actions.
The attack on the witch Gail was a good example. Had they gathered all of their forces from Colorado, they could have easily taken the woman down. But Sin hadn’t wanted to wait. And it cost their organization a lot of lives. Then there were all of the resources spent trying to apprehend this damn necromancer. That debacle left another fourteen of their people dead, scattered across the state.
Magic users were just too unpredictable, his missing arm was proof of that. Eugene had only himself to blame there. He should have suspected that the necromancer was up to something. Sin had warned him to be wary around the man, that he wasn’t what he seemed. But Eugene had let his previous interactions with the necromancer cloud his better judgment. He should have just shot the man and reported to his boss that he wasn’t able to get a confession from him. But he followed orders like the good little soldier he was and now he was suffering the consequences of his actions.
The failure had cost him his arm, which was not regrowing despite the healing potion, a healing potion that had come from the same damn necromancer. Eugene couldn’t discount that as another clever ploy by Norman. The man was a devious planner. That was clear by the trap Eugene had stumbled into. And now that Toby fellow had somehow been able to track him down, despite the traceless item Eugene possessed. There were too many coincidences, he knew he was missing something.
Eugene could feel the healing power of the potion wearing off as it dealt with the bullet wounds. He couldn’t stick around with people hounding his every move.
Eugene had failed in his mission and his targets would now be on high alert, it was time to cut and run. He needed time to heal and reassess the situation.
What was abundantly clear was that the necromancer was growing in power and would need to be dealt with as soon as possible. Eugene could probably still kill him but failing a second time was not an option. Not for him and certainly not in Sin’s eyes. He swallowed his pride and started making his way toward a new destination. There was no worry about Norman escaping, Eugene had marked him for death with another skill. It would ensure he would always know where the man was until one of them was dead. What he needed was help.
He made his way to an exit portal that the gron had set up. Eugene and the upper echelons of Sin’s organization knew about the gron city. They also knew how to come and go with impunity, a fact they hid from others that stumbled into the city. The information had allowed them to spread to three other disconnected areas of the earth during the last few years. The portal Eugene was heading toward did not lead back to Colorado. Eugene needed help but not just any help, he needed magical help. And he knew just the right psychopath for the job.
A human compliance officer stepped out of an alcove with his hand out to stop Eugene. Eugene glanced at the hand, then glared at the man.
“I work for Sin.”
“I know who you are,” the man stated flatly. “You were told to keep your activities in the city quiet. Why am I getting reports of gunfire and of a one-armed man running around causing chaos?”
Eugene tried to slap the man’s hand away, but the man’s arm blurred faster than Eugene could react and was back in place. Eugene sneered at the speed-focused man. They may be fast, but they weren’t faster than a bullet. He could snap the man in half with ease if he got ahold of him.
“Things didn’t go as planned. The target is more dangerous than was realized. Now, are you going to let me through? Or do I need to make you?”
The officer smiled. “Oh, I would love to see you try. I wonder how your boss would react to losing his spot on the council due to the actions of his flunky?”
Eugene stiffened at the threat. The council was the joint criminal enterprise that had cropped up amongst the reconnected human states. It consisted of a province in China, a part of Brazil, and New York City. With each area having its own member on this council. Sin might be big in Colorado, but he was the small fish in this game and the other three never let his boss forget his place. The only reason the other members hadn’t taken steps to remove Sin was the difficulty of moving large forces across gron territory. The gron might be slow to react to change, but they couldn’t be underestimated.
“That’s what I thought,” the man’s smile grew even wider as Eugene backed down. “This is the last warning you are going to get. Deal with your issue quietly or else.” The man stepped aside and motioned Eugene forward. “Have a pleasant day, citizen.”
Eugene scowled as he stomped forward and through the teleporter.
***
Brigette had not been happy to find herself in court-ordered manual labor. She hadn’t come to this stupid area expecting there to be an advanced civilization hiding in plain sight. Then she had been processed like some refugee and assigned a job she didn’t want to do.
Perhaps she had been a bit too shortsighted when she tried to track down someone that might have been able to help her back home. After not finding the man in town after the Gail takeover, she had been forced to expand her search with the sparse information she had on him.
That information eventually led her to the northern border of Colorado, where she crossed and was teleported to Grothlosburg.
Despite the Orwellian nature of the country, Brigette found it fascinating and it seemed to work well for the very strict gron as seen by their advanced technology and magic. Unfortunately, all of that was ruined by the fact that she was stuck here breaking rocks for five days. Her hands were blistered, her feet were sore, and her arms and back ached something terrible.
She wasn’t alone in her misery. There were other humans, jorik, and species she wasn’t able to name there with her. All had been labeled rule breakers and agitators by the gron. She noticed there were no gron stuck breaking rocks. But after meeting with a few of the gron, she understood why. If she bent one over, she was sure she would find a wooden pole holding them up.
The buzzer sounded and she nearly cried in joy. Her punishment was finally over. She levered herself up, wincing as her back let out an audible crack as it protested the movement. Then she handed in her work token. The gron behind the counter stamped it complete and motioned for her to step inside an alcove.
She did so and was immediately whisked away. When she appeared at the new teleport platform, she had to steady herself. She still wasn’t used to the teleporters after a week of having to use them. They always left her a bit dizzy and disoriented.
“Ah, Miss Brigette, it’s good to finally make your acquaintance.”
Brigette looked up to see an immaculately dressed gron with a smile on his face. “Um, do I know you?”
The man chuckled. “I would be surprised if you did. No, I know a mutual friend of yours. As you were getting out today, I figured I could arrange a meeting for you two as I was heading over there myself.”
“And you are?”
“Oh, where are my manners? I am Barthus, but you might know me as the gron President.”
Brigette's eyes widened and she tried to dust herself off before sticking out a hand. “I’m so sorry, Mr. President. I did not recognize you.”
Barthus kept smiling as he shook her extended hand. “No need for that. I prefer to be as informal as possible. Now, shall we go, or would you prefer to go someplace and clean up first?”
Brigette looked down at her clothes, only now realizing just how dingy and worn they were from a week of hard labor. “Perhaps a bath and a change of clothes?”
The President led her to her assigned quarters where her backpack and items had been left before she was carted off for mandatory labor camp. She thought it was a bit weird that the President was the one showing her around, so she decided to ask him about it.
“As I said before we gron aren’t much on pomp and ceremony. If I am capable of doing something, then why shouldn’t I? It’s much easier to do something myself than it is dictating my orders to an aide.”
She supposed it made sense from what little she knew of the gron society. It just felt so alien and weird to her based on her experience with human politics.
After cleaning up, Brigette followed the President across the city to another building that looked exactly like her apartment. She was still feeling the effects of the teleporter when they arrived outside a door.
The President knocked on the door and waited politely.
Brigette let her mind wander as they waited. She wasn’t sure how the person she was here to find had learned about her arrival, but she was glad they had. She wanted to get this business out of the way and return home as soon as possible. She would need to ask the President about how to do that last part.
The door opened and the President walked inside a small apartment that was an exact copy of hers, only in a different orientation. When she looked up, she froze.
“Norman! What are you doing here?”
