Chapter 99: Warehouse warfare (Patreon)

The warehouse shook as the explosion washed over its entrance, and the workers inside had to cover their ears and close their eyes to spare their poor senses from the effects of the detonation, all lying on the ground after they had been pushed further away from the detonation point by their bosses. At least, the mundane workers.

Four humanoids, with clothes and skins on the border between black and dark grey, emerged from the central room of the warehouse, just as the explosion ended the last one left the room and closed the door behind itself before following the others to join back with their leaders: the towering lupine man and the diminutive goblin shaman currently standing on his shoulders.

The two stood in front of the entrance, the wolfman had his arms crossed as the goblin atop him did a little gest with its hands, turning each one around the other in a flowing motion, dark green energy escaped from the palms and formed a gigantic vertical ring around the group, made of a material that was neither liquid nor gas, immaterial and translucent, and the ring flowed and rolled, engulfing the smoke around them and that kept flowing in from the cracks in the weakened yet still standing walls and door. Though damaged, the warehouse had perfectly resisted the explosion.

On the outside, the various onlookers finally got to see the building as their eyes adjusted and the smoke and dust cleared, and the scouts and passers-by were quite shocked to see how little the bomb that had just detonated had done.

Among them, one man, in particular, stood out. Surrounded by half a dozen knights covered in steel, his armor unlike theirs was white, made of larger plates covered in fine details mimicking muscles and more abstract red lines and circles yet it kept a much lither frame, far from the bulky look of his fellow warriors this one looked more like a statue given life, a mannequin of pearly metal. His helmet too was different from the rest, rather than the classic helmet with a slitted visor the men surrounding him shared - armets - he instead had a stranger one, it started at his chest and bordered his shoulders before rising in a thin shape that clung to his neck and grew like a large collar or mushroom stalk, and it was as though a second helmet emerged from this collar to protect the top of the head before ending in a beak-like shape at the front, the space between the beak and the collar forming the slit through which the knight could see - all in all, a design someone familiar with medieval history may recognize as a frog-mouth helm. Atop his head rested an oversized bright red feather, looking as though it had just been plucked off an ostrich's tail and dipped in a paint bucket.

In the knight's hand was a spear whose bottom was resting on the ground, its bright red staff was half again as tall as the knight wielding it, and its tip was a perfect piece of sharp white metal in a teardrop shape, as long as a forearm. Of course, the spear was covered in various etchings and symbols, small things that could be confused for an aesthetic choice but that none of the people here today wouldn't recognize: runes.

The white knight and his entourage stood some distance away from the warehouse, at the end of an alleyway nearby, but they still had an unobstructed view of the explosion and the damages it caused - or rather, failed to cause.

One of the regular knights addressed their eye-catching leader.

"Sire, it appears the explosion failed."

"Indeed. It was to be expected, from what we know of this Silhouette."

"Should we engage?"

"No, not yet. Rushing in now would only lead us into falling into a trap. Let us stay here, for now, sooner or later they will have to exit to check the damage and begin repairs. We'll reconsider then. Still, be on your guard. We know they have ranged weaponry, and Silhouette's attacks during his confrontation with Pierce Evil supposedly rose from the ground."

"Very well, sire."

Back in the warehouse, seeing no one was trying to bust in, the shaman and the man it stood on exchanged a look before addressing their fellow infused, the goblin speaking first.

"Two of you stay here and stand guard until the reinforcements arrive. The rest, follow us."

"One of you, open the door, scout outside, and report. Protect us while we clean out the closest group."

The infused nodded and followed the orders. The two that chose to stay back decided to check on the more mundane employees, meanwhile, the one that went outside quickly looked around and noticed the group of knights in the distance and called out to the people inside.

"Knights to the left, standing by. Approximately six in steel armor, one leader in white. Roughly a hundred meters away."

After that the infused ran around the building, checking that there wasn't anyone else trying to catch them by surprise.

At the same time, the group of knights began to grow agitated.

"Sire, one-"

"I can see, soldier. Probably a scout, to check their attackers, and potentially go request for reinforcements."

"Should we stop them?"

"No. We're not here to capture a target, merely to poke the nest and see what happens. Silhouette had no reinforcements on the Black Block, so this is the perfect opportunity to see the extent of his forces."

"What if we are overwhelmed, sire?"

"That's why I'm here, and why lord Runar trusted me with an escape device in the worst-case scenario. But have no fear, soldiers, even in his failed attempt Pierce Evil didn't lose a knight."

"Very well, sire. So we should keep on waiting?"

"No. If you were in their position, and just noticed a small group of enemies close to one another, what would you do?"

"Use explosives if possible, sire."

"Good, you see my point. So ready yourselves, blast attack incoming."

The knights rearranged themselves, now forming a half-circle around their leader as they spread to put a little more distance between each other, leaving him to face the warehouse alone. He lifted his spear, its bottom no longer touching the ground, and began to spin it, a bright blue glow beginning to emit from some of the various inscriptions on the sharp white head, the glow tracing lines in the air as the weapon moved.

The infused scout, not noticing anyone but the group he had already spotted, returned to the entrance of the warehouse.

"Nobody but the knights. They have begun to act, they changed formation and the leader appears to be preparing something."

The wolfman nodded while the goblin, who had still been doing his weird little gesture with his hands so far to keep the ring of green magic going, slowly repositioned its hands and fingers to make the gest smaller and only have its index spinning around one another, and as it did the ring shrunk and moved to float in front of the shaman rather than surround it and the lupine it was standing on, up until it looked like a dark green translucent tire filled with smoke floating in the air. The wolfman changed his posture, dropping to the ground to stand on all fours, and walked to the entrance. The black flames that escaped from its hollow eyes, usually so small they were hidden by his fur, suddenly grew out and became much more visible, almost looking like the horns of a hellish beast. The wolf and the goblin exchanged one last look before the beast charged out, his claws marking the ground as he exited the warehouse in a burst and immediately turned to face the knights, just in time for the goblin to release the spell it had been feeding so far.

For the knights, it was a sight straight out of a horror story: a dark furry beast with horns of black fire ridden by a dark sorcerer had just appeared, and just as their minds processed the sight a wheel of poisonous energy suddenly flew at them and grew, turning from a ring into a gigantic wave of dark green death ready to swallow them whole.

Their white leader huffed out in contempt as he fully channeled his energy into his weapon, the spinning weapon suddenly going much quicker as the wispy trails of blue light the head had been emitting so far turned into a flow of supernatural water, a whirlpool forming in the air before the knight just as the wave was about to wash over him.

The two forces of magical liquid crashed against each other, translucent and glowing blue and green flowing against one another, forming a sphere in the air as they struggled to absorb or undo the other - a sphere that the white knight batted away with his spear, throwing the massive thing big enough to devour a car unto the beast and his rider as they charged towards him and his entourage, before spinning his spear one more and launching his own waves forward, smaller than the miniature tsunami he had just blocked but still tall and powerful enough to knock down anyone that may be in the way.

The goblin scoffed at the sight from its furry perch before it twirled on itself and unleashed a bolt of dark energy toward the oncoming sphere of still-fighting magical energies, launching it back into the air as the wolf made use of his momentum to keep his posture low to the ground while stopping running on its arms, instead relying fully on his powerful legs to keep his speed going as his claws slashed at the oncoming waves, each strike cutting through the magical forces and opening a passage large enough for him and the goblin on his shoulder to slip through.

Just as the duo was about to breach through and reach their opponents, the wolf stopped just in time to avoid impaling himself on the lowered spear of the white knight, the pearly white head a breath away from his furry forehead, and the knights that had been surrounding their leader so far had repositioned themselves closer to him and all had their blades pointed at the goblin and their shields ready to block whatever the shaman might throw at them.

The fighters stayed still and silent for a second, each side waiting for the other to make its move before the spear wielder chose to speak.

"I must say, I didn't expect a magic user and a magic breaker of such talent to work for Silhouette. Formidable teamwork might I add. May I know the names of the ones that proved themselves worth my time?"

The wolf growled.

"Information for information."

"Ah, of course, how rude of me. I am Speareau, The Flow, one of the Runarian knights. And you, my primal friends?"

"Fluorine."

"Loedycan."

"No titles? A shame."

Loedycan took a step back, but before he had the chance to take another Speareau thrust his weapon forward, placing the brightly glowing tip on the skin of the wolfman without piercing it.

"Tutut, stay put. I'm not foolish enough to think reinforcements won't arrive soon, but until then, I'm sure you have a lot to tell me, my friends. I am quite curious about those eyes of yours, Loedycan. Magical manifestations replacing body parts are quite uncommon, especially around these parts."

Fluorine the shaman suddenly twirled and threw out a blast of dark green energy Speareau batted away with the back of his free hand.

"As for you, Fluorine, primal goblins are a rare sight in civilized society, particularly those with an elemental alignment."

The white knight pressed his weapon even further on Loedycan's brow, just enough for trails of black blood to begin to form between the dark hairs of his fur, barely noticeable to the mundane eye.

The wolfman took another step back and the shaman did another twirl, and just as Speareau readied himself to step forward and threaten them once more a shadow formed on him, and the knight barely had the time to look up and raise his spear to catch the black humanoid that had thrown itself off the roof of a nearby building, the aggressor's fall ending as its torso met the tip of Speareau's weapon in a crunch, the pearly white metal piercing the sternum with a crunch followed by a meatier sound.

The wolf and his goblin rider took advantage of the distraction to retreat, rushing back to the warehouse before Speareau was done throwing the body off his weapon. The black mass flew through the air before falling limp to the side, and as soon as his spear was unobstructed the white knight ran after the duo, phantom water forming around him as his spear glowed much stronger than before, a magical torrent forming in his wake-

Just before a field of black spikes emerged from the enormous shadow that suddenly appeared on the ground, the trunks blocking the magical water as the tips twisted to chase after the knight to pierce him from all directions.

He twirled his weapon to control the water he had summoned to block as many attacks as it could before hitting the ground with the bottom of the red staff, he noted how the shadow parted around the impact as he channeled his energy into the red staff to propel himself in the air by summoning a spectral geyser that formed under him, even more water surrounding him and forming a stream to control his movement in the air, forming a blue line that pointed directly at the group of knights still in the alleyway.

The spikes on the ground blocking the water grew even further into lengthy tentacles that chased after him in the stream, and as he reached the middle of it the knight put his spear out, just in reach to pierce the massive orb of still fighting blue and dark green energies that the goblin had thrown back in the air and all parties had ignored until now, though it was noticeably smaller than when it first formed. As the white metal of the bladed tip pierced it, the sphere unleashed all of the magic and smoke it contained in a powerful blast, blinding the sight of most on the battlefield for a few seconds.

When the air cleared enough for mundane eyes to see properly, Speareau was back with his men, the small ground standing under a dome of flowing water. In front of them, where not so long ago stood a field of spikes and tentacles, was a recognizable pitch-black figure.

Within his shield, Speareau spoke up.

"Silhouette, I presume. I heard much about you."

Silhouette didn't answer, and instead slowly approached the group in their alleyway.

"Not in the mood to talk, then? I had come to understand you bantered for a short while when dealing with my junior."

"Sire, is it wise to antagonize him?"

Speareau hummed behind his frog-mouth helm as the subject of the conversation was suddenly much closer, merely a few steps away from the shield.

"No, no it is not. Still, we have learned much today men."

The dome of pure water slowly went through a change, black ink beginning to appear within and taint it.

"As for you Silhouette, I must say Pierce Evil hasn't done you any justice. I hope you will have a change of heart and join us willingly."

As the shield grew inkier and inkier, Speareau passed his hand over a spot on his metal collar and the runes beneath his fingers glowed before the metal opened, revealing a small crystal.

"Put your hands on my armor and take hold of each other. If one of you isn't in contact with the rest, you will be left behind."

The knights followed his command, and as the shield almost became too dark to see through and the last metal-covered hand took hold of another's armor, Speareau crushed the crystal.

In a pop and a flash of light, the group disappeared and the field collapsed.