章 48: Chapter 53: King with Soldier

"Been entire days since he's come back, I can't be on my own again. I can't abandon him if the cult hasn't captured him." Anthony with a tear told himself as he was looking out of his window building up courage. As Anthony sauntered through the city streets, a bird he kept feeling was familiar gracefully soared through the air above him each time he would take a glance toward the sky. He read their sign in his head before he took his first steps into their shop but he had the sense that it was abandoned some time ago as he wandered inside and surveyed the shop's public floor. He knelt on one knee as he looked around and saw signs of the store being ransacked and he didn't doubt it being the case. "I just need clues of where you've gone." Said Anthony as he walked to the back room and noticed a carpet that looked as though it was hiding a secret. He found nothing but that someone had tacky taste. He found himself staring at a portrait of a bearded man hung up on a wall in their messy back room, he was hoping to find a key item behind it and he found a key he found himself to be clueless on next to it. A shotgun rack with a missing shotgun that made the investigative journalist rest his chin on his index finger as he began to question and a key to somewhere that he suspected would lead him to his clues he's searching for as he broke in. Finding himself stuck in a dead end with the back room, he realized another was in the shop's lobby which the key belonged to he assumed then realized that he found himself in a living room leading from their shop. A couch, television set, computer, everything and other rooms. Signs of the living room being ransacked, blood stains on the floor, a large and strange collarbone that he wanted to stay clear of naturally. Hours of searching and discovering clues led from one to another but nothing which could give him a concrete clue of anybody's whereabouts since the last few days. He decided to leave before trouble showed its face and left, looked up, and saw the Gray and black majestic Mississippi kite that had been following him persistently. He remained calm and hopeful as he stared at the bird and it stared back. Anthony gasped as he remembered seeing the bird fly through the night during his meeting with Derek. The bird flew at a pace that allowed the curious investigative journalist to follow him, Anthony noticed and found himself overwhelmingly assured that the bird was leading him somewhere important. Dreaming of a beautiful man becoming a demon forced Derek Wiley to awake, yet with foggy memories, a cloudy mind and the irking feeling like his muscles were too heavy for him to move, he was able to groan, however, barely able to raise his head or arms yet. He looked at the ground and saw that he was moving and heard breathing. Out of the side of his eye as he realized he was being carried, he saw Dae-shim and Jun-suh getting dragged into a mysterious room through the strange place that he found himself being carried through. "Servant of Lord Enotocin." He heard from a person that sounded like an older woman. He heard a grunt and managed to lift his head and saw flashes of a muscular back with unbelievable intensity. "My most talented student had informed me that the final rebel had a weak pulse and he finished him but this one in fact was found unconscious, he brought him to I, your orders for his fate?" Said the mysterious older woman as she bowed to him as if he was royalty. "He failed to grasp our Lord Enotocin's powers that his family mysteriously are born with themselves. With gray eyes, he couldn't perform even the simplest talent. He's a disappointment, the same as that irksome vanquisher and meddlesome vigilante which he's related to that led him down this failed road, Philip and Jacob Wiley, do as you wish but assure that he suffers for his detestable arrogance." Said the mysterious older shut-in he assumed to be the one his Grandfather warned him to avoid. "Yes! Yes. I'll leave it up to our greatest interrogator and torturer, sir." Said the Knives Mistress.

"You lead me to this dusty, messy motel?" Anthony asked Fenella as she ascended when it was in his view. The worry-less investigative journalist took a deep breath and filled his mind with comforting thoughts that assured he kept himself that way before he walked to the front desk and asked the clerk using the descriptions of Reynard and Amin to figure out which room they stayed in. Anthony turned around and saw Reynard was kicked out of his Motel room's window, glass destroyed as he came out crashing to the ground below he didn't want to know of the feeling. Anthony and the clerk ducked under the table as shots from Reynard's pistol were fired, a sword on its own was holding him down on the ground, struggling to move it off his pistol. Anthony could see one of the cult member's heirs, Emilio speaking as he stood above on the banister waving his arms as Reynard continued to struggle with the sword pinning him down. "I've got to make it to Amin and question him!" Anthony spoke in his thoughts as he kept his cover with the clerk. "He's in a panic for the both of us!" Anthony thought to himself as his heart was beating as if it had the need for speed. The investigative journalist rushed out in a panicked fashion while the two battled, as Reynard stepped Emilio's flying blades and blocked his main hand sword with his powerful armored gauntlets. One of the blades stopped as Anthony saw it and fell to the ground. "You're literally me, pal!" Anthony heard from Amin who stood above spectating the two duke it out over their past. As Anthony picked himself up off the ground, Emilio jumped on the roof then over to avoid his gun when Reynard finally acquired it after being disarmed. "How'd this happen if you received my intel?" Anthony asked with a tone as if he was confused. "I— so you are— anyway, you haven't contacted us in any form and label our strategies as horrendous and decide to keep your distance, we need to begin working closer together." Amin spoke and opined as Anthony made a rejected expression. "He transformed and sped away before I could tell him that you guys are hidden in a lowkey electronics repair shop, telling by the fact I needed his supernaturally intelligent bird to lead me here, he found a clue leading him to you two and something happened? Where is he?" Anthony replied as he leaned over the banister and his heart began slowing down. "I'm sure you know about Emilio, he spared him back in the original ambush then if I had to guess he or someone else followed us when I drove Reynard here a few days ago after he was injured in a fight with two assassins who Mistdeemer seemed to have an awkward past with himself, who then notified him of our location. I noticed it at the last second unfortunately but he believes he can get him to talk, he really believes that he can get him to tell us the location of where they're keeping Mistdeemer." Amin began facepalming and shaking his head at Reynard's plan. "I know exactly where they're holding Mistdeemer right now, locations are no big deal to figure out but our only issue is with our rescue team and… the location itself." Anthony informed and confidently assured the teammate he finally met in person as he turned back around to view the heated fight. "You're practically our own personal spring of knowledge, huh?" Amin asked as he turned to spectate with him.

Derek opened his eyes once more regaining consciousness until he heard a woman laughing hysterically as if she was demented. "How does it feel that you're strapped on the same table as many of your nosy purlieu friends, boy?" Said the older woman in front of him with a smile of satisfaction. "Mistress of the Cerebral blade arts?" Derek asked before he attempted to become gaseous but failed, tried once more with his closed as focused as he could become but zero success. "The servant of our Lord Enotocin's punishment for you. Suffering prior to death." Said the head mistress as she walked towards the door. Derek's eyes widened as he began to question why he couldn't transform to escape his confines. "The ability to cancel my powers?" Derek asked and proposed the theory in his head as he looked out towards the room and surveyed the torture chamber. A man with a potato sack over his head walked in with razors following right after him through the air on their own. "Brought each cliché into this?" Derek mumbled with an awkward grin. "Humor won't save you from what you're about to endure. I doubt you were ever that type to begin with, unlike your Grandfather. Have any aspirations you want to remember before we get started?" Said the head mistress in a grim tone. Derek remained quiet and lowered his head. "Oi, he's not the kind that enjoys hearing himself talk?" Said the man dressed as an old executioner with scars all over himself and a gruff voice. "I guess not. I am, hey, allow me to enlighten you a bit. Want to know the exact story of how I came to be how I am?" Asked the head mistress as she inched closer to Derek and propped his eyes into hers gripping his chin. "I don't, tweety bird." Derek answered in return with anger in his tone. "Humorous. It takes place in Chicago, I was sixteen going on seventeen at the time. A battle ensued at my hometown between Enenra's servant and one of your former leaders. Basa overwhelmed him so greatly that he thought the safest way was to expel his energy over the town which caused catastrophic damage. You deem us as evil? I awoke in the aftermath of his stupidity, buried under my house, I wandered the streets when my parents died from your careless leader until Basa gave me something to live for and fight for, he recognized my new awakened abilities as your leader's. Transferred. Everything I am is thanks to him, to your purlieu of heroes." The head Mistress enlightened Derek as she continued to grip his chin and force him to pay attention. "That was unfortunate but none of that justifies the suffering you bring to your orphanages and they continue to bring to others. Villain ramble." Derek replied as he looked away immediately once she let go and turned away. "That's all there is in this world. The fortunate and unfortunate, now you're going to be able to relate to the second you pampered naive child." Said the head mistress as she gestured to her short student with his razors readied to be used. "I do!" Derek shouted out, she gestured for her torturer to pause. "Out with them. That I'll give you before he begins." Said Head Mistress as she prepared to walk but kept a satisfied smile on her face. "I've got my brothers that I need to live for, I've got my grandparents, I've got my parents that I need to have them feel proud beyond—- their graves. I've got a woman who found this loser worth something. I've got terrible decisions that I made in my life to answer to and learn from, tragedies that fuel me to strive to be better. I've got other heroes I've avoided— that I promised to honor their beliefs. I've got three new friends who'll come for me. Enjoy your moment of freedom for now. The rest of your life will be spent locked away stuck on your bad decisions." Derek asserted with a lowered tone as he braced himself. "Maybe, maybe one day. This day, let them be on your mind the moment prior to you taking your last breath when he's through with you." Mistress knive replied before she left the chamber. Hearing Derek's screams of agony pleased her as she walked down her corridors.