“Will all of the smaller dragons go to slumber with a simple tap in this area?” Collin asked.
“It’s not so simple. They’ll shoot… well, breathe their fire at you to keep you away from that area. You have to avoid that flames to get there. How good are you at avoiding a dragon’s fire?”
“I do believe a royal guard has been trained well in fireball avoidance; I will save your Valkyrie.”
Good, Operation Valkyrie Reclamation happens in fifteen minutes, everyone, get ready.”
llll
Fischer walked to the front gate with all the Snaggerz troops and robot hunters with his jacket opened.
“I’m unarmed and here for Brakken. Tell him I’m here, no tricks.”
Borlund looked around and radioed the rear entrance. They transmitted there was no resistance, so he called Brakken.
“He’s out front. No, he didn’t, the back’s clear. I think he really wants Sneak Queen breathing.” After a few seconds, he called to Fischer. “He’ll be here, just wait,”
Fischer watched how devastating the HD bots were. Emotionless without an ounce of compassion. They were programmed to destroy any target without consequence. Brakken’s scientist had perfected this new environment inside those bots. They mirrored this cold and heartless city.
Brakken finally exited the factory wearing a pink satin camisole with leather thigh-high boots. He brandished a riding crop to a mystical stallion. He wanted to look ‘fierce’ for this confrontation. He walked to the gate.
“You look desperate and sad. Just like I did when you threw me at the dogs,” Bakken said with vitriol.
“I didn’t know, Benny, I’m sorry,” Fischer said.
Brakken walked out the gate up to Fischer and kicked the back of his knees to make him kneel.
“The name is Brakken. Benny died in the Drop. But you remember that, don’t you? After all, you did kill him without a thought. Your little brother’s dead because, in your mind, he wouldn’t survive in this new harsh world. My name is Brakken, get it right!”
Fischer looked sharply at Brakken.
“I’m still your big brother. Do not order me around. I saved your scrawny ass in high school more times than you could count, Muffin Mindy Addict.”
Brakken remembered what Fischer did for him, but that exacerbated his abandonment.
“Benny’s not here anymore, you killed him. Muffin Mindy triggers nothing in me. I don’t know that bitch.” He smacked Fischer across the back with the riding crop. “I’m Brakken! Apologize to Benny.”
llll
5 Snaggerz were patrolling the rear docking area. Nothing was happening. They all were getting bored.
“There’s nothin’ happening back here, Rick. I think Brakken scared them off.”
“It’s still our job to protect this back area, Allen. They won’t just let Fischer come here alone. The Bolts ain’t stupid,” Rick had him keeping alert.
Donnie watched the sky for any drones.
“I don’t know, Rick. All I can see are those city pigeons in the air. No drones, just flying rats.”
The Snaggerz were alert for abnormalities. Sadly for them, the infiltrator team worked with commonalities. They were experts at hiding in plain sight.
“The DMHP birds are over them, drop the agent,” Wanda transmitted to her drone operators.
When the drone pigeons were in range, they dropped Dimethylheptylpyran, a sleeper agent in a heavier-than-air gaseous form. It was orderless and invisible to the unsuspecting.
The process was fast in execution. All the Snaggerz began to get drowsy and dose-off. That was when the women emerged from the wood at the back of the plant.
“You have placed slumber spell upon them, how long will they visit Dream Land?” Collin whispered to Wanda.
“They’ll be out for an hour. Longer than we need to rescue Klannis if you don’t get drugged again,” she told him. “Stay alert and don’t screw-up this time.
One of her operatives picked the lock and they entered quietly. Wanda rallied them all.
“This won’t be ‘park-walking’ time, so expect resistance. Let’s do this by the numbers. Use your stealth, hit your pressure-points, knock ‘em out, and Collin, you get Klannis.”
“I will rescue your Valkyrie, I am a royal guard.”
“The label of a royal guard holds about as much importance as the words chicken-lips do to me. Just do your job.”
Collin understood his title meant nothing without the proper action to support it.
“Aye, Lass. I shall return.”
“Okay, Team Tigress, execute on three. Stay quiet and let’s drop some Hooks… Three.” They broke off from receiving to complete their mission.
llll
Fischer knew what he had to do. It wasn’t really a tactic to get his spy back. It was actually about being more heartfelt to his brother. He began to speak with everyone watching.
“Brakken, I was wrong. I thought you would slow me down trying to survive out here. I almost didn’t graduate helping you. You probably didn’t know it, but I had to defend you from the students and teachers. I pushed Kelly to implement the gender apparel nullification ubiquity rule, so you could walk the halls without getting your ass kicked every day. Everybody in the student body targeted me for that. I got hazed at homecoming for putting it into action. For you, high school was learning. For me, my senior year of high school was like the new fish in the state penitentiary.
If they did that to me there, with no rules then, what would they do to me out here? It was a dick move, you’re my brother. I’m so sorry the Drop made me weak that way. I screwed-up. Don’t kill Klannis because I was the one you want to take-out. I’m here, let her go.”
This was a very strange turn of events for Brakken. Throughout his second month in high school, all the hell he endured had eased-up and he didn’t know why. Fischer just revealed the reason. He didn’t know how hard his lifestyle choice had damaged his big brother. Certain big brothers just did the protection, but never voiced it. He thought it had something to do with that ‘useless men only show emotions’ fallacy ‘tough guys’ followed. This entire situation derailed his plan to overtake the BoltLayers and dominate for the Rayless One.
“You like to alter my plans, don’t you?” Brakken asked.
“What are you talking about? Alter what plan?” Fischer was confused.
Brakken explained.
“I thought you would do what anyone else would by trying to trick me to get Sneak Queen back, I had everyone ready to defend against your feeble attempt at a stupid victory. I’m good at ruining parties.
“Then you come along without any support and let me know why you did it. I wished you dead for leaving me, but I had no idea you were fighting my fight for that long.
After that first week, I contemplated suicide, but was too chickenshit to hang myself and I’d just throw-up pills.
Then the second month happened and there was nothing. I wasn’t taunted or bullied. I even had friends. Kelly never told me you told her to do that when we dated. She kept your secret and liked my Muffin Mindy collection.
Get up, your knees must be killing you.”
Fischer stood and began to smile. He knew what had to be done. He wasn’t Brakken the Terrible, he was Benny, his little brother.
Brakken, come in, came from Brakken’s boot pipe. Brakken pulled out a 2-way transmitter.
“I gotta catch this, hold on.” He answered. “Brakken here, go ahead.”
You were right. I don’t know how they got this far, but we just captured forty-two BoltLayers trying to release Sneak Queen. We have them on the floor in chains waiting for. You.
He turned to Fischer to see his genuine shock at the information.
“I guess your team doesn’t listen to their leader. Your communication sucks.”
Brakken heard the angry growl.
“Rembrandt! I TOLD you I knew what needed to be done, idiot”
“I take it you want to see this Rembrand
t then,” Brakken assumed.
“Take me to Klannis. I have a little something to say to Rembrandt,” Fischer said with a chaotic demeanor.
Brakkennn clicked the 2-way. “On the way.”
As they began to walk to the factory, Brakken told Fischer. “If I never saw you that pissed before, I would think you were trying to play me.”
“That’s what I tried to tell Rembrandt, brothers know brothers.”
llll
Fischer, Brakken, and the rest of his crew walked to the middle of the factory. When they entered onto the floor, they saw his entire infiltration team, Collin, and Rembrandt in steel-cabled bindings sitting on the floor with Chloe suspended from a machine with similar bindings. They walked to the lower floor.
“Get her down from there,” Brakken told his men. “Release them all. They are no threat to us anymore.”
Fischer smelled the dank rot in the factory and the assaulting aroma fueled his anger.
“Who told you to bring my stealth infiltrators to this factory to free Klannis when you know I told you I have this under control?!”
Rembrandt stood from his bindings rubbing his wrists and spoke.
“This was a critical rescue mission, and since the antagonist was your kid brother I thought your actions would be cloudy enough to get Klannis killed.
“Is Klannis dead?! Was my mind clouded, Brakken?!” Fisher asked with his anger directed at Rembrandt.
“No. When he told me he messed=up, his mind was clear. I bet it’s a little lighter after that admission.”
Rembrandt was very surprised Brakken spoke cordially to Fischer.
“But I thought…” Fischer overtook his sentence.
“…Out of fear because you didn’t listen and had no faith in my leadership! You decided to have Wanda bring her neutralizers to break into this stinky factory while I was patching things with my brother! If he didn’t know me, he’d think this was my plan all along! He could’ve killed me for this stupid stunt!
I’m happy he didn’t and the reason was exactly what I told you this morning. Brothers know each other!”
Rembrandt felt the heat emitting from Ficher’s words and began to apologize.
“I’m sorry, Fischer. I’m your number two. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
“And you almost getting me killed because you didn’t listen to me is keeping me safe?! You have failed your duty! You’re demoted from your position and the BolttLayers! Hopefully, the Skull Diggerd would accept you, but if not, become a lowly Renegade; just get the hell outa my face!”
Rembrandt was shocked at Fischer’s statement. They both were together for years fighting in the trenches against suicidal cult clans, hopped-up scripters, wild animals, and psychotic renegades. He had never dismissed him.
“Have your panties been wedged so far up your ass you can’t see them anymore?” Brakken broke the thick tension. “I’m assuming this guy has gotten you out of more scrapes than he has put you in. He is second in command for a reason.
Stop being bitchy and forgive him the same way I forgave you… or have you forgotten what just happened five minutes ago?”
Brakken knew how to set him to serenity with common sense. He was granted forgiveness from a terrible wrong that has haunted him ever since the initial Drop. Why was he being so cold to Rembrandt?
Chloe was finally able to stand from her leg cramps, walked directly to Brakken, and punched him hard in the Jaw! He fell to the floor.
“Don’t you EVER touch me again, you sadistic FREAK! Even if you think of unbuttoning my fly again, I swear to you I will bite it off and spit it out!”
Fischer had to hold her back.
“Stop it, you’re free, Chloe! We’ve settled this score!”
“No, no,” Brakken got up holding his jaw. “Don’t snuff her flame. I made it an inferno, I deserved that,” he said. “Damn. Girl. Are you a dredge slammer, because you sure hit like one.”
“Just be lucky your teeth are still in your head, because if Fischer didn’t stop me…”
Fischer wondered why Chloe went pure berzerker. He asked her.
“What did Brakken do to you?”
She turned to him and whispered into his ear. His eyes widened.
“That was six-feet-under deep, Brother. At least you know where it is. Just don’t… well, never do that to it. You have a sick mind and you definitely did deserve that punch.”
“Wait, you two are brothers?” Chloe was surprised. “Okay, what did I miss?”
llll
They all rallied back at the BoltLayer’s warehouse. The Snaggerz were fragrance-deaf to the putrid rotten bean smell, but Fischer’s team couldn’t think straight with that assaulting smell attacking their olfactory nerves.
“It’s cramped in here,” Brakken said. “What was wrong with our base?”
“Hath thou not obtained the knowledge your yaks have spewed their fermented innards about your castle?” Collin asked.
Brakken turned to Fisher for a translation.
“What the hell did he just say?”
“He said your factory stinks of rotten beans and rusted metal in his Old English way,” Ficher explained and saw Brakken’s confusion. “He was temporally displaced, don’t ask how. I don’t know either.”
Brakken just absorbed the weirdly abstract, because he was the poster-child for that term.
“I didn’t smell anything.”
“We’ll return after you tell me about this other guy, you’ll smell it then,” Fischer assured him.
“I mentioned The Rayless One on the way here, so it’s time to elucidate. He does things I have never seen before. You just can’t go in with full firepower even if we still had bullets for guns when he can scramble your organs with a word.”
Fischer was astounded but skeptical.
“And you’ve seen this.”
“When he recruited me, he accented his point by ghost-blanking a few Renegades. I couldn’t say no. Papa was on-stage at that time. The reason I was such an asshole was that I didn’t want to become a scrambled clan leader. I didn’t have on my make-up. My corpse would look atrocious. I don’t even think he’s human. You can’t stop him.” Brakken had this foreboding sense of dread.
“He was the one to begin the Drop for this planet, and we just happen to be in the epicenter, great,” Fischer said.
“This wizard sounds like Asmodeus Prince of Demons,” Collin said. “And you are voracious, he is nay a common mortal man.”
“You’re still falling for a fabricated legend, Collin. There are no wizards, witches, or dragons. All those objects are storybook legends. There was never any evidence of any real ones.”
“Lord Sagen is a wizard.”
“Old Man Krucks is a schizophrenic crazy-man. I know you came from the land of supernatural tales made real, but science has kicked the supernatural’s ass for centuries. We live in reality here,” Fischer couldn’t entertain the magic misunderstandings any longer.
“You just touted we are living in the real world. I guess my existence in this futuristic era is reality. Please explain my presence.” Collin stumped Fischer’s diatribe with his pure presence being manifested in this current time.
Fischer returned.
“I don’t know yet. Science is sometimes slow, but it is absolute in the theory. When new things evolve, scientific theory evolves with it. Science lives on laws, not facts,”
“You seem to use your knowledge through this science element. My experiences do not possess your element of restriction. Witches, wizards, dragons, demons, and warlocks are voracious to me. This Rayless One is a dastardly unrelenting warlock you must joust with. Do not be stubborn and take his power lightly. You will be doomed for your effrontery.”
Fischer looked at how seriously dire Collin had become and responded.
“I’m sorry, Collin. Your time was rife with superstition. The 1200s had to try to understand this vast planet. Your people made up things to survive what you didn’t understand. I’m n
ot arrogantly stupid though. Rembrandt made me that way. I respect your beliefs, but I just have to take your beliefs with a grain of salt. We will find a way to defeat him. We just have to do it right and not with the magic which doesn’t exist.”
Just as he said his piece on the matter, a banging came from their front entrance. One of Brakken’s men looked at the entrance monitor.
“It’s nobody, just that wino, Krucks.”
“Allow him entry! I must reconnect with Lord Sagen!” Collin was very excited.
Fischer nodded to Raziel, and he opened the door. Krucks entered and pinpointed Collin. He began to speak in Latin.
“Castra munire praesidia regis virtute Cumberbatch.”
Collin walked to Krucks and kneeled in front of him.
“I do not understand how I know you spoke the royal guard’s sacred axiom, but we do protect with valor.”
Sagen put his hand on Collin’s head.
“Arise, Araklimn. Your absence of memory was engineered with the dark sorcery of Lord Kirkland. We have much to do here for your native time has waned and produced this degraded era. He inadvertently has sent you to his lineage’s doom.”
Chapter Five: Finding the Way to Defeat the Rayless One
Fischer was very surprised Krucks knew who Collin was, and why he was sent here. His name wasn’t Collin at all. His real title felt more majestic.
Fischer looked at Krucks and pointed to Collin.
“You’re saying you know this guy?”
“Aye, his name is Araklimn Bausch, Royal Liason Head Protector of Cumberbatch Castle. He has rendered his services to guarding Princess Gwenlyn. He was considered a mere nuisance to the dark warlock Lord Kirkland. His memory was wiped of the current vitals and Kirkland thrust him into this grimy future in which he created. I chased after the era eschewing. I was slightly incorrect by several years, but I have finally found him with his appearance intact.
Remember Me Page 5