Everything related to the game 'Maplestory' belongs to Nexon, or the company that owns it at the moment. And Macbeth belongs to Shakespeare.

'Or heaven's Cherubins, hors'd Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.'

-Macbeth, by William Shakespeare.

Cherubin.

Chapter one.

A cherubin. The second highest order of angels, below Seraphim and represented as winged children. Maybe we fitted the children part of the description, but angels?

Nah.

You see, we aren't flying naked kids with pretty white wings- we like our clothes very much, and we weren't going to be known for being the people that ran around in the nude. We were known for an entirely different reason, one that doesn't involve lack of clothing.

We were the elite force of Godmasters, hidden by masks and various disguises. We were all pretty proud of the fact that no one knew who the heck we were, until we came for them. And believe me; we go for people all the time. Thank your resident God that it's never been you.

Because when we hit, we never miss.

Ever.

We don't have much of a past. They called us bright kids in school, but never really exceptional like the occasional genius. All of us were friends, surfing through life quite happily at the Arcenus Academy and getting along with everyone else. Just like any other kid, really. All of our parents were best friends and went off to fight Zakum all the time, so we got by fine in the financial sense of the word. That was until The Accident.

We don't like to talk about it.

Skipping along the timeline, we got picked up by the Godmaster recruiters who thought that kids could be able to do the job pretty well. And we did more than 'pretty well', actually. Now, we kick ass.

So that's it. Our lives in a nutshell- hey, I never said it was going to be anything mystical or interesting, like our parents all got killed by a meteorite sent by Gatekeepers or something. Or maybe our parents were ancient heroes hailed by the entire world of Maple as saviours, and we were the next generation who would massacre the relatively easy-to-destroy boss, Zakum. We don't have anyone we regard as parents, no way in hell are we 'avengers' of them, and being the saviour of the world is just not our thing. All that clichéd shit is just not us. Now, our present is way more interesting.

Like when we chase after paranoid members of the Hacker Underworld, all the while using the Godmaster's skill- Hide. It's great- Maybe you had been expecting us to run after people in full daylight and masquerade masks, all the way shooting magic, arrows, stars and generally just alerting the public to our immediate presence.

Sorry to disappoint, but no. There's the public for-show Godmasters, the Ethics Godmasters, the Intelligence Godmasters, the Infiltrating Godmasters, and then there's us.

We like to think of ourselves as the 'crack-team-of-kids-hacker-take-outers'. Other people call us 'Cherubin Elite', 'Retrieval', 'Team 02' and sometimes simply as 'those crazy kids'. Charming eh? Whoever said they wanted to be a Godmaster… you really gotta take a couple of things into consideration. Prejudice was one of them.

Don't get me wrong, we love our job. Mesos were mesos, and unlimitless Nexon items were perks. Kaka got a haircut every other day for fun.

Oh right, I haven't introduced you to the gang yet. There's six of us, including me. I'm the team leader, the second in command, and the third in command. Yes, I was nominated for all three positions because my lazy team members didn't want to plague each other with my supposed 'fiery impatience of doooom'.

No idea of what they're talking about.

Like I said earlier, there's Kaka, or Kakabel. Her name means 'Angel of the moon'. Yeah, we all got new names when we became Godmasters. Names are identity you know, and we wanted a brand new name to go with a brand new life. It was kind of appropriate having Angelic names considering that we were Team Cherubin. Kaka's the resident hyper kid in the team, but have you seen her in battle? Oh wait, you couldn't possibly. If you had, then I'm just going to assume you're a ghost.

Then there's Nathaniel. So-called Angel of Fire. If you hadn't guessed, he's a fire and poison mage. Something I didn't mention about Kaka was that she was the Prankmaster. And Nath was her parter-in-crime. Lets just say that when those two are plotting something, you have the right to be very, very scared. All of us have been the target at one point or another. We're all scarred for life, literally. The pranks... well. You wouldn't like to be on the receiving end if you valued your life. Their definition of a 'harmless prank' is radically differen't from an average person's.

Raphael, Angel of Healing. She's the only one, apart from Grendel the Ninth, who can say she's totally mastered the Bishop's skill- Resurrection. It's quite scary when she starts bringing stuff to life. Once she brought a hacker back when Intelligence needed the inside information. Of course, we killed the terrified guy again. What? Our job isn't to let random hackers run amok, spilling Godmaster secrets.

Zethar, but we call him Zeth. So-called protector of Immortality and angel of confusion, and first in line for a fight. He's the best bowmaster around, easily. But really, Val is so easy-going and friendly; it's disturbing to see his rapid transformation when we're doing a job.

Cahor. He's my right hand man of a sort, but he doesn't speak much. All of us love him to death but he isn't exactly… huggable.

Then again, none of us are all fluffy and cute. Quite the opposite in fact.

Then there's me. I was the last to choose my name, 'cause we went by age order. The angel thing was getting to be slightly overused, so me, being me, chose the first thing that popped into my head. The goddess of strife and chaos.

Eris.

Ah well, always better than 'Waffle' or 'Seaweed crackers'. Anyway, us- the Cherubins, always have jobs. We aren't like the Intelligence Godmasters who only get stuff when a new wannabe Hacker Empire springs up. We're on constant demand all the time. Why?

We're kids, we're smart, and we're good.

And our powers are pretty awesome as well. Kaka has the most amazing- wait one second. I'm not supposed to tell you anything extra. Don't worry about it, 'cause you'll get to know all of us well enough 'til you could write a flippin' biography if you wanted to. But for now, just get with the program.

'Eri, target one moving Henesys SE 037. Target two almost down. Target Three moving Kerning NW 279.'

I switched back to on-the-job mode and grimaced, sucking in a lungful of polluted Kerning air. Damn it- I hated it when we had to split up. Call me overprotective, but if it was between my team and the job, I'd choose the team over any ludicrous promotion to Team Seraphim any day. Nevertheless, I barked orders into my Godmaster Communicator.

'Kaka and Nath. Get rid of Target Two. Raph and Zeth lock yourselves on Target One but chase towards explosion site. Cah, we're going after Three.'

This was going to be slightly messy. I don't mean it in the normal sense, but in Cherubin-sense. Which meant that there'd probably be tons of hackinium hitting the fan. Shrugging, I tracked Target Three on my communicator, pushing the keys with more force than necessary. You can safely assume that I wasn't in a fantastic mood. You see, tracking individual sources of Hackinium is a relatively new method.

In other words don't use it unless you're forced to. Unfortunately, we had to rely on the unreliable tracking device instead of years upon years of Godmaster instincts because we were the test bunnies for this new… method. And 'cause they had threatened to transfer us to Intelligence for a month or so.

Newsflash: If you want to get to Cherubin, threaten them with mission suspensions.

Pathetic, we know. But there's nothing like good ol' adrenaline to keep you on your toes.

Time to move my mind back to work. Someone's gotta earn the mesos and keep us all in shoes around here.

Stalking the hacker in question with considerable stealthiness, Cahor and I slowly drew our weapons of choice. Mine was a beautifully crafted Blue Marine, and Cahor preferred his Dragon's Tail. Each was specially designed to inject several millimeters of the deadly chemical Expellius Maleficus, known to all simply as 'ban'.

If we were feeling kind, we chose to use the normal kind of ban- the kind that'd just disable all of your skills and your communicator, forcing you to live like a civilian for a month or more. However when we were seriously pissed off, like I am now, I release the special strain that can instantly kill you.

'We have a hacker to track,' Cahor said, a not so gentle reminder that told me to keep my mind on the job. He knew my tendency to drift off into my little fantasy world of sparkly rainbows and pink bunnies.

Nah. More like fighting an entire army of ninjas single-handedly, flipping like a gymnast everywhere and displaying killer kick-ass moves. And just when the screaming baby is within inches of certain death- sheesh, I need to get a better attention span.

Grimacing, we made a sharp turn through one of Kerning's numerous alleyways. Someone needed to give this city a good scrub. It was actually debated in the Council of Nine, but the Dark Lord protested and muttered something about 'charm of the city' and 'too much light is bad for you'.

'Damn, he moves fast.' Slightly tired of chasing the goose, I used some of my mana to weave a bow of ice and lightning and aimed it at his back.

'Hit 'em with ya laser gun,' My delightful partner-in-justice smirked, lazily throwing a meso coin at Target Three as soon as I let go of the arrow. Target Three jumped a foot in the air before rapidly running right into another maze of alleys. Consulting my communicator, I grinned. He was heading right for the explosion site. I beckoned for Cahor to flash jump with me rapidly after him, trying not the disturb too many air particles as we went.

'Hey Eri, location explosion site. Target Two dead and disposed of, target one running around like a headless chicken.'

Smiling at Zeth's choice of words, I used the Godmaster Haste on Target Three. He was in such a panic he didn't even notice the rather unnatural speed he was moving at. Call me careless, but I have a serious need for speed. Especially when a couple of seconds could mean hit or miss.

'Guys, we're heading your way. Stand clear, people.'

I heard the chorus of affirmatives as we rounded the corner to the entrance of the explosion site. Target Three didn't seem very bright. I had read his file myself, and had thought that being a Rank 6 Hacker, he'd at least have half a brain. Guess all of 'em are starting to get more brainless by the year. His actions had gotten over impressive as of late. If you're a natural born cynic and scoffing at him right now, if you thought that storming the Free Market and stealing over 4.2 billion mesos worth of equipment, scrolls, and pure mesos and massacring 3 famous merchants is no big deal…

Go douse your head in cold water, right now. And you'd best keep it there for a couple of seconds… no, make that hours.

'Cover, explosion in five. Repeat, cover immediately. 10m max. Now.'

I gave them two seconds to teleport, flash jump, or dig a hole in the ground before turning to Cahor. He nodded and set up invisible wards of Shadow Web, Power Guard and Meso Shield. He had always been the most creative with our skills.

'Two.'

We started sprinting away as fast as we could, adrenaline pumping through our veins. I had always liked this part of the kill.

'One.'

Cah took my hand and threw us forward into a roll while I heard large booming sound in the distance. No prizes for guessing what- the explosion site was, in fact, an explosion site. But the sound was too loud, and I knew for a fact that the boom happened several milliseconds earlier than the supposed time. Something was wrong. With no time to waste, we continued leaping over trash cans and assorted rubbish, desperate to get out of the alleyway. Using a scroll was out of the question- we had to go back and check and dispose of the bodies, if the explosion hadn't shattered them to a million pieces. A millisecond later, a searing heatwave flowed down the alley. Grinding my teeth, I motioned for Cah to flash jump both of us to the top of the building.

My world turned into a dizzy swirl of colours and various recognizable shapes before I finally righted my body. I grabbed my communicator from my belt, spitting out my words at bullet speed.

'Report, report!'

After a couple of agonizing seconds, I heard their replies. Sure, they sounded shaken, scared, and confused. But they were alive.

And that was what mattered.

'Wait regulation 5 minutes then head in to explosion site.'

The explosion site was, as you might guess, an explosion site. It was affectionately called 'End-of-the-road' by the Godmasters. Every town had one- a special place protected by wards that only allowed people accompanied by Godmasters in. Namely hackers. If a hacker or any other guy accidentally discovered the entrance (odds being one to infinity), it'd just be like any other alleyway, carefully directing the person away from the place.

That'd be enough to blow anyone's mind, but what was bugging me right now was that the explosion was too big;something that could've been easily contained within the Godmaster-made wards should not have sent out a heatwave hot enough to crack the sooty concrete walls. When we reached the edge of the explosion site, our eyes widened.

'Something's wrong.'

'No duh.' I snapped right back at him. I wasn't stupid, despite some contrary beliefs, courtesy of Team Seraphim.

The entire place was intact. No splattered hackinium, no mass destruction or familiar piles of debris. I did a secondary scan of the area. Nope, nothing, nothing, noth-… I zoned in on 3 pieces of paper, their stark whiteness setting them apart from the dull grey and darkness of the area. I flash jumped off the building and landed softly on the ground. Gingerly, I walked towards the papers with Cahor right behind me.

I scooped all of them off the ground and read the short message written in different fancy cursive handwriting.

'How's this for tricks, Godmasters? – Ex Target One'

'You can't kill a dead hacker. –The dead and disposed of Target Two.'

'Run, little godmasters. Run like the wind. – The respectable Target Three'

Wordlessly, I handed the three pieces of paper to Cahor. I was chanting 'this is not happening' to myself, like a mantra. Target two called himself dead and disposed of, the exact term that Zethar had used. How on earth did they manage to intercept our Communicator signals? And how did he manage to stay alive when Zeth and Raph knew that they had killed him? Trying to work out this sudden turn of events, I heard the soft sounds of the rest of my team behind me.

And all I had to say was 'We got owned.'

Raphael scowled, flipping her electric blue hair out of her eyes.

'We checked the 'Ban' explosives, Eri. They're all intact, except I found this envelope on the trigger.'

Raph handed a stiff envelope to me and I opened it without thinking or checking for trap triggers. I thought that hackers wouldn't stoop so low so as to place a device in an envelope. Big mistake number Uno. I opened the folded piece of paper, the exact material of the little notes the targets had so kindly left us.

'Dear Godmasters-

My my, the standard of the law-enforcement agents is dropping, isn't it? You lost this game, and to three of my newest initiates no less. Ah, people always say they want their lives to go out with a big bang. You tried to extend this courtesy to my good friends, and we extend this courtesy to you as well…

Edir.'

I stood there, rooted to the ground by the message. Then it clicked, several seconds too late. I paused, rethinking the idea before actually letting the message flow through. Big mistake number two.

Lives… big bang... To you…

I scrambled for the exit of the explosion site, fast, fast, fast, shouting for my team to run, run, run, because we had been outsmarted. We were the losers of this game.

And the winner took all.

The idea just came to me. Just trying out a different writing style... ~_~