Five people huddled together in a night-dark park, only partially concealed by a small stand of trees. Each wore a distinct costume, too different to be called a uniform but clearly meant to be part of a set. Their faces could not be seen, hidden behind a helmet, dark glasses, or magic.
The five huddled around a phone held by the one dressed as some kind of field medic. The screen displayed a scene from a living nightmare. The sorcerer’s castle’s dark, thorned spires clawed their way to the sky. It vented plumes of smoke in toxic purples, greens, and teals that were trapped within the purple-tinted shield that trapped the castle, cutting it off from the surrounding world. In the castle’s front courtyard stood the sorcerer himself, Prince MourningDagger. Various monsters, slender silvery human-like forms with no faces and bright pink, ostrich-like terror birds, surrounded the threat. Something far worse than all of this held the team’s attention.
Kneeling with MourningDagger’s hand on the back of his neck was the curly-haired one they knew only as ‘Mentor.’ A man they had ‘captured,’ slowly learned to trust, and tried to free from a terrible curse. A man they had hoped would be their teacher and guide in understanding the magic powers they’d somehow gained and overthrowing the conquering evil that now held the man on his knees.
Salem, called Speed when enveloped in her flawless tracksuit and helmet, clenched and unclenched her fist in a blur. “No. Fuck no. How the hell did we let this happen?:
“He’ll get out again,” Blade, called Heals in his field medic gear, tried to reassure himself and the others. “He got out once, and that was before we freed him.”
Quickmoon, the team’s Sword in loose black pants and sword-fighting gear, shook eir head. “How do we know it worked? He could really be trapped.”
“Then we’re the ones who are fucked,” growled Mobb, the group’s ranged fighter known as Guns. “He knows too much. If he’s still under the curse, he’ll tell MourningDagger everything. They’ll know who we are.”
“Enough.” The calm, confident voice held a timbre no human voice could. Which was to be expected of their Frontman, Astaroth. His face was the one concealed only by shimmering golden magic. Impossible to identify even though one could still see its outline and general shape. In fights, his shout knocked over enemies from yards away. When he wasn’t shouting, he could still be heard across an entire city.
Frontman turned and surveyed the park. Dusk had fully set, and he didn’t see anyone, but he wouldn’t necessarily. His powers were flashy, not the subtle thing that would recognize a spy in the darkness. “Not here, not now.” He held out his arms and waited. The others moved into a circle, right hand grabbing right wrist, left hand grabbing left wrist, an unbroken ring. A moment later, they were gone.
Back at their new safehouse, a rich hunter’s cabin full of grisly trophies and fur rugs but also stocked with food, Blade scoured social media. After half an hour, he found a shaky phone video of Mentor’s capture — not far away from their former safehouse. The audio was too garbled to get any conversation out of it, but he showed the rest of the group. MourningDagger had been ready for Mentor, from what they saw. Waiting to capture him when he tried to escape the sorcerer’s last attack.
In her regular civilian gear now, Salem looked close to tears. She insisted the team had to rescue Mentor — immediately. Mobb shook her head in disgust. Her experience in the reserves had taught her a bit about a situation like this, and she would not get caught in a trap just to calm Salem. “One, we don’t know what happened. For all we know, he was playing us the whole time. Two, even if he was captured, he is one man, and we have a whole fucking planet to save somehow. And–” Salem tried to cut in with objections, but Mobb raised her voice to yell over them. “Three, we don’t have the first clue how to rescue him, even if we wanted to.”
Quickmoon nodded. Ey didn’t believe in acceptable casualties, but there wasn’t much they could do. “Mobb is right about three. We can’t begin to make a plan until we have actual information.”
Blade continued to scroll social media, keeping one ear on the conversation, when one of his news tags pinged. He yelled, “Look at this!”
The five sentai once again huddled around his phone screen. Once again, MourningDagger’s castle loomed in the background. The prince’s massive frame loomed over the kneeling man they had dubbed ‘Mentor’ only a day ago. “Report, Lieutenant,” boomed that arrogant, demanding bass.
And he obeyed.
“As you ordered, my lord, I managed to infiltrate your enemies.” His beige skin held a faint pallor barely visible on the little screen. “While they are impressive fighters, outside of combat they are naive and foolish children. They play with powers they do not understand and have no sense of how to fight a war. Your attack came very close to destroying them utterly because of their foolishness.”
“They are weak defenders for a weak world.”
“Good, lieutenant.” MourningDagger said, “I know you have many details to give me in private. Everything I need to know to track down these gnats and eliminate them.” The prince removed his hand and stepped forward. Even on the small screen, they could see how the captured Lieutenant shuddered in relief. “Listen well, gnats! And the foolish world that depends on them. You took your enemy into your very heart and never knew it. The only reason you weren’t slaughtered in your beds is I wish that pleasure for myself.”
“Think on that while you hide and cower in the dark. I give you one chance, little gnats.”
“Come and kneel before me! Take down your magic, surrender, and I will show mercy.” Then MourningDagger turned and snapped a finger at him. “Come, lieutenant.”
The group could only watch in horror as the one they’d given the title of Mentor followed MourningDagger inside. Salem shook her head slowly in disbelief. Mobb cursed MouringDagger in several creative ways. Blade scowled. Quickmoon shook eir head. Astaroth sighed. Had everything ‘Mentor’ had told them been a lie? Or was MourningDagger lying now? How could they even tell? Silence clawed its way through them as the realization hit.
Mobb broke the silence again. “No,” she cut herself off. “No. That’s not the truth.”
Astaroth cocked his head, something like hope in his grey eyes. “What do you mean?”
“That? That was staged; that’s what MourningDagger wants us to hear, wants us to think.” She shook her head, wavy blond hair falling into her green eyes. “Think about it. Assume he was honest with us, assume it was all true — what’s to stop MourningDagger from /ordering/ him to say those things?”
Blade shared a look with Quickmoon. Mobb could be right. If she was, then there was still a possibility the loophole had worked. If it had, Mentor would be too smart to get himself killed proclaiming that freedom. Still, it didn’t leave them with much more than faint hope.
Salem glared at Mobb. “You never trusted him; now suddenly you’re saying we should?”
Mobb laughed, a little hysterically, “Salem, I still don’t know if I trust him, but I know I /don’t/ trust MourningDagger.”
“And we shouldn’t,” Blade agreed. “But we should try to get some sleep and make a plan in the morning, even if it’s only a plan to find information.”
Astaroth nodded. Trust the healer to remind them all of the need to sleep. “Fine. But before we do that, we need to make sure a certain bully knows we aren’t cowed. Is everyone good for one more quick trip?”
Mobb tilted her head. “What’ve you got in mind?”
“Just a quick trip to MourningDagger’s prison. To remind him it /is/ a prison, and the ‘children’ he keeps mocking put him there.”
They teleported directly in front of the glimmering shield surrounding MourningDagger’s castle. Heals tilted his head and put a hand on the shield. “You feel that?”
They nodded. The shield had weakened somehow. “Can we reinforce it?” asked Guns.
“Yes,” Frontman said, “Surround it, like when we created it.”
The others nodded and spread out until they were equally spaced around the dome. Trusting his instincts, Frontman called out, voice ringing across the city, “MourningDagger! We got your message. Here’s our answer!”
Moving together and trusting an intuition they still didn’t understand, they spread their arms wide, and lighting shot between them, crackling in a pentagon around the dome. As one, they stepped forward and pressed their hands to the dome, forcing the power they had gathered in and through.
MourningDagger emerged from the castle, eyes wide and furious. As the five sets of hands touched the dome, the lightning crackled into it and coursed through the entirety of the dome, flashing and sparking and then fading, leaving MourningDagger once again trapped inside.
Astaroth turned to the watching cameras. “We may be children compared to this asshole. But he is still the one who is trapped. And he doesn’t know all he thinks he does.
“We will defend this world, and one day, we will kick MourningDagger off of it!”
Leave a Reply