The Greatest Mistakes a Trapper can Make
Argent was out on the docks with Alice and they observed the sea, the waves crashed back and forth. This was the eighteenth day since Argents animal side had retracted and now he could feel it clawing to get out.
Argent had spent most of those days making enchanted clothing for himself and had finished barely yesterday with all the pelts from the animals he'd killed when his Monster had taken over.
It was a good day, the sun shone brightly and Alice had left a little earlier to go eat lunch, she'd invited him along but he couldn't at that moment, his hunger kept the monster inside. Eating would only prompt it to try harder.
Then a scream from the castle.
Argent turned and sprinted, the monster pushed for control.
He shouldered dock workers out of the way and burst into the hall where a man held Alice in a headlock, a smile etched onto his face. Something in Argent stirred.
It was the same smile Death had given him.
Argent launched into a frenzy, he sprinted over as the guards were forced to stay back by the men with the invader.
He dropped Alice and she scrambled away as Argent tackled him and began to shower him with punches, the mans face was a bloody pulp in moments.
Then he heard a click and a gunshot.
Alice dropped to the ground as blood leaked from her side. She'd been shot!
You could here, that Argents mind sort of snapped, but not in the crippling way, in the enraging way that sends people into a blood frenzy. Well, that's exactly what happened.
Argent turned, the monster had pushed to the surface and now he was in full swing. It was lucky they brought lots of men because Argent started ploughing through them. He'd found his halberd somehow and the blade was drenched and dripping with crimson as he spun and swung, then another gunshot and it smack into his back, he felt a little woozy but kept on going, they died in droves and another gunshot that pierced him through the lung, he dropped to his knees and tried to shield himself at they beat him with cudgels. Argent roared and stood up once more and started to kill once more, but one last bullet that took him through the heart made him gasp and he dropped, unconscious.
Argent hadn't listened to the Councils decree but paid attention to where he was steered once they'd put a metal patch over his left eye and was flown to the White City and thrown gracelessly into a cell high up in the sky where no green grew and his powers were limited. The mask was removed and a rag was wrapped over his eyes instead.
Argent sat in the white stone cell and stayed there for an entire day, trying to get a feel for anything related to plant life.
He couldn't see so when he stood he nearly stumbled a few times and crashed into the wall more than once. Eventually he figured it out.
The room was sixteen by thirteen, had a cot on the left wall if you were facing the cell door and a toilet on the south corner, a drinking fountain on the north-east corner and he'd managed to memorise the pathway around the room.
He'd spent six days finding every nook and cranny in the room and his arms were released from the bonds but he requested that his eyes remain covered.
Argent was developing a sense he'd never had before, he was starting to be able to navigate by the feel of the place and soon, when he'd let some of his monster side take over, he could send out what he thought to be pulse waves which returned to him. Soon he was seeing things from a completely different angle and he knew that there were two guards by the door who he spoke to on a very regular basis, they were a chatty and rather interesting pair. After spending a whole year without seeing the light of day he requested that the blindfold be removed, they did it quickly and gently.
When the light hit him it was like a blast of the freshest air he'd ever had. Still his senses of knowing locations by the simple feel of the place and even the way the air flowed remained and he began, after another six months of getting to know the Angels better, that they get him a fold up table.
When he was granted this he earned their trust even more and started asking them more... Odd, questions over games of chess. "So. Any idea who the people who brought me in were?"
They replied that they didn't know and he asked if they could find out for him. When they said yes he grinned inwardly, and when asked why he replied. "I'm going to congratulate them on catching me. I made a mistake, I certainly won't do that again." They shrugged and got back to playing.
The Angels played chess with him every day, he deliberately let them win half the time so they would keep playing even thought they were truly bad players.
After another two weeks locked up he began to receive visits from the Horsemen who checked around his cell and then some spent a little while sitting about and chatting.
He had to retrain himself, when Deaths turn came about, Death was his third visit. War had come first and was obviously retraining himself from beating the teeth out of Argent who barely acknowledged his presence. Strife had been a little easier to deal with. He'd insulted Argent and checked about his room for any signs he'd been making an escape route. He found none and left with a smirk on his face, Argent had smirked as he'd left.
Deaths visit had been somewhat more subtle, he had tried to initiate conversation about the past, but Argent wouldn't reply and Death left as soon as he got annoyed enough. Their visits were only once a month thankfully, but he did relish Fury's visits.
She was perhaps the most like him out of the Horsemen, and she was nothing like him. They played chess and she'd win occasionally out of skill, but Argent was still not doing his best to beat her. After all, where would be the fun in letting her think she didn't have a chance?
Fury's visits had eventually, over the course of six years, narrowed to almost weekly, and he was happy about it. He constantly had a source of conversation and secretly he was still gathering the names of who had managed to knock him out at the castle. And left Alice dead in a pool of her own blood.
Soon he'd been given access to some of his old things, mainly pelts and bones and from memory he carved pieces the pieces of chess.
First the pawns, or the remaining ones at least, the ringleaders.
Then the rooks, straightforwards attackers, the bishops, who tried to get him indirectly, the knights, two of the Horsemen, War and Strife. The queen, Fury, and the king, Death. Who would fall the hardest to his demise.
Fury had played with the pieces, the fact that faces were carved into them seemed to slip her mind.
The new day marked the anniversary of his imprisonment. He had been training hard for this day, the stone beam above his head he'd used for pull-ups, he'd used the ground for push-ups and had taken his time in focusing, he'd eventually battle a right that he had for an hours work out, even the worst legally got it, though their defence had been based on 'he didn't count as the worst of the worst, he counted as something completely unchartered'.
He'd not lost his skill to hunt, not one tiny bit, and he'd bided his time until he had all the names and locations of his captors. And today was the day he escaped, the first to ever escape a maximum security holding cell of the White City.
"Hey Gregory, come over here! I need a favour!" The Angel who was pacing back and forth walked over, and leaned on the bars. "Yeah Argent? Whatcha need? Hey, thanks for teaching me about micro-reaction turns out it was a big help and I wasn't just being silly in thinking-" Argents hands reached through the bars and snapped the Angels neck to a 180 degrees angle and the one next to him snapped to attention but was stabbed in the throat by a piece of bone that Argent had sharpened with a fingernail. That was how he'd made the rest of the chess set. Argent spent a moment fishing out the keys from Gregory's belt and unlocked the door. He got out and picked up ones halberd and shield and went to go find where his things would be kept.
It seemed that they didn't let people's things go amiss and he changed into his old thicker clothes and picked up his own halberd and started sneaking out.
It was easier than he thought, though Angels were everywhere their sights were trained on the ground in front of them and all he had to do was hide around hard to see places, eventually getting into the city and waiting until nightfall in his first victims house.
When day struck family's who worked the nightshift came home to find their partners who had worked in a job barely ten years ago had been systematically murdered in their houses.
All the pawns are gone. Next come the rooks
The next people to die were brothers who lived out on a dessert planet and were reported dead in the morning, their family's didn't see anything apparently and soon, the Council became suspicious that it was all connected.
They hadn't gotten the entire group so they didn't know the details of who was involved but got the Horsemen on the case.
It was a good idea at the time.
Argent found his way back to the castle and found that everything was almost exactly the same as when he'd left. A dark stain on the ground marked where Alice had died.
Argent went through his own and her room searching for something, what he didn't know, but he'd know it if he found it.
He still had to go after the man who had knocked him out and killed Alice, so he left that night.
The man who had killed Alice sat with his wife and children eating without a care in the world. Argent didn't want his kids to grow up and try and hunt him so he decided to take a more... Easy, approach.
Argent knocked on the door and it was opened by his wife and he asked. "Good evening, I must speak to your husband."
"Is this regarding the Council? Tell em' they can stuff a-"
"Angela, let me handle this!" The man who killed Alice came out and stepped outside, shutting the door behind him.
"What's this about?"
Argent led him around the side of his house and asked in a fake curious tone.
"Ten years ago at a castle, do you remember the job?"
"Yeah sure, the Charred Council wanted us to catch some crazy hunter guy and one of my buddies decided it would be a good idea if we used his girlfriend as bait. Only half worked. Most of us died but we got him in the end, he's in a White City cell now if you're trying to make a biography." Argent chuckled. "It's good you remember, I was getting worried you'd forgotten." He frowned. "What the, who are you old man?" Argent bent over and seemed like he was tying up his boot and grunted with it pretending he actually an old man while he was actually selecting which knife he wanted for this job. The eight he had each served a specific purpose, one was for gutting another for filleting, one for hunting animals, another for making a quick job on people...
A long double sided knife flashed and was drive up through his chin into his brain and he died without even a scream.
Argent left him on the ground and decided it was time he took out the knights.
Loose Ends
Wars home looked cozy, Argent found that food had been left out and was slowly cooking over a fire as War was out the back training, Argent produced from a pouch a number of plant heads that had to be applied instantaneously or they would lose potency.
He dripped each ones essences onto the food, a big steak with not much vegetable on the side, or even fruit.
"No wonder he's not much more than a jockey, diets dirt."
Argent went upstairs and waited for War to come in.
War entered his home and grabbed a bit of his steak and took a big bite while he walked upstairs and saw Argent looking in his room. "What the? How did you get out?" War raged, he was about to draw Chaoseater when he started choking and fell to his knees, it felt like fire in his stomach and he dropped unconscious.
"Too easy."
Argent left for the last knight.
Strife was sleeping when he picked the lock into his house, he'd left his two guns on a bedside table and Argent quietly took them and started applying his own... Additions to them.
He waited until morning and ate an apple as he waited, it was good.
Strife woke easily and immediately grabbed his guns, when he saw Argent he gasped, pointed the weapon at him and pulled the trigger. A burst of green cloud fired out the back of the weapon and he choked on it the same as War had done and also fell asleep. Argent decided he'd get another apple before he left.
"Fury, Argents gone." She frowned at Death as he stood behind her while she fixed up target to whip.
"He's gone? How? When?" Death started pacing back and forth as he said. "I went to investigate, and while I had the time I called back one of the souls of his jailer Gregory. He had a lot to say. Most interesting of which, is that you've been seeing him weekly for the last few years." She shrugged outside but inside her heart was beating quickly.
"We played chess together. Nothing else." Suddenly he was right over her shoulder. "Are you sure?" She jumped, for some reason. "Yes, just chess, and checking he wasn't digging his way out once a month." Death growled under his mask. "I find it difficult to believe that." She turned on him and glared. "It's true! I wasn't doing anything more than playing a friendly game of chess with him! We didn't hook up! We didn't kiss, or do anything like I'll bet you're imagining! I do not fraternise with the enemy!" Deaths jaw was set like stone and he left her where she was to speak to the Council. Something was playing on his mind.
"We already know." The centre visage said after Death had given them his report. "You already knew he was gone? Why didn't you tell me! Or the others, get one of your pets to tell us so we can put him down for good!"
"You have failed at every turn! What can you do to stop this hunter? He is beyond you!"
Deaths reply was low, and cold. "I'm going to use Alice." The Council didn't reply for a moment.
"That is an inexcusable thing Death, you are prepared to use her as leverage? Your brothers and sister will also be punished if they partake in this action." "That is why they are not going to partake in this event. If they come to help me I am asking you to restrain them. By any means you see fit. This is my burden, I started this and I'll finish it." The Council remain silent for a deep. "Very well. We will do this for you, the girl, is yours to use."
A portal opened and Alice dropped out in a heap, her eyes were wild and unfocused and Death made her stand up. She shook herself away from him. "Don't touch me! Butcher! Argent will kill you, he's better than you at everything there is!"
"Silence! I'm bringing you to him, pray he places you above his want to kill me." She glared at him as Death opened a portal to where their first battle had taken place, he was going to make it obvious that he was going to be there.
The ruins of Stython.
The End
Death had gone back to tell Fury that she was not to follow him where he was going, and when he explained his plan to her he had to shout her into listening and she grudgingly let him go without following. He hoped that Argent wouldn't be far behind as he went to Stython, his nerves were jumping.
But that wasn't his luck.
Fury sat down at her table and drunk a glass of water, she felt Death was making the wrong choice in reverting to old tactics, but to best Argent she couldn't see any other way.
Then a voice.
"White moves first. I'm waiting." She turned hoping for and against it being him. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him, halberd against the wall and him leaning back in his chair. Fury turned around and moved one of her pawns.
"Your turn." He moved quickly and the game began.
"So, Death retreats to Stython, but I don't know his plan. I'm betting you know Fury." She was getting nervous, Fury knew from a rumour that he could make a link via his left eye and make you a puppet to his will, apparently if he linked with an animal and focused hard enough he could see through their eyes and make them do what he wanted.
"I'm not telling you, you have to beat me in this game and I'll tell." He smiled and moved a rook to take hers, he pulled it away slowly, deliberately showing her the face carved into it, she saw it and suddenly remembered the team who captured him. Suddenly she figured it out all at once.
"That's it, you've planned this out from the beginning! Everything, the chain killings weren't random murders like what the White City thought, they knew you'd escaped but couldn't believe it was you because they didn't think you had the names, let alone locations," she moved and he thought about his next move, "so you hunted them down and killed them all in three days, the last one they didn't think was you because when they asked it was an old man who turned up to the door, but it was you!" He chuckled as his bishop took her knight and her queen took his rook.
"Now you're ready for it, you're going to kill him no matter what, and this time you'll make sure he's long dead before the others can get there." Argent chuckled as he stopped playing and leaned back, contemplating his next move.
"Well done, you're a true investigator, with some training I think you could find me rather easily. But don't expect the others to come to his rescue any time soon." Fury leaned forwards as he moved his king left a space. "What did you do to them?" He sighed and frowned as he stood. "Both are unconscious, be thankful you weren't a target, or an obstacle."
Argent packed the chess pieces in and took his halberd and left Fury sitting there trying to process what she should do. He made a few detours before he went to Stython.
Stython burned, it was filled with smoke that made Argents senses annoyed and he felt angered that so much of nature was being wasted for nothing but a useless diversion.
Death stood in the centre of the courtyard and behind him, strapped to a pole that had been brought with him, was Alice.
"Alice!" Argents voice held concern brunches stopped when Death held a torch near a pile of sticks and logs below her.
"Don't move! Or I burn her alive!" Argent stopped, Death wouldn't meet his eyes now, and Argent was confused as to the purpose of this. "I'll make you a deal Argent, I'll give Alice to you! But you have to stop hunting me and the other Horsemen, your crimes will be wiped! A clean slate from the Law!" Argent growled and took another step forwards, the torch dipped lower and he bit his lip. "I have the Councils word?" He called over, Death gave a near imperceptible nod and Argent called. "Alright, you win! I'll call off the hunt, but if you cross me! I'm going to butcher you and all your brothers!" Alice was cut down and she ran over to him, almost falling over herself. Death walked past him but stopped when Argents free hand wrapped around his shoulder. "I swear that if you do anything to endanger Alice in future, you will regret it for the rest of eternity." He nodded and shook his arm free as Argent hugged Alice and whispered comfortingly into her ear.
When Death got back to his house he found next to his cot was a piece of a chessboard, a king piece in fact, with his face carved into it.
Epilogue
War and Strife had woken up in their beds with pieces of a chessboard in front of them and saw that their faces had been carved into them, when they examined them and looked at the bottom there was a mark on the flat bottom.
An indescribable face curtained by hair and a single black eye that was different to the other one. A tiny note had been left next to them saying.
Challenge me. I dare you.
"How did you do it? Survive I mean, for ten years under the Council, they didn't hurt you did they?" Alice lay in Argents strong arms and had cried for a day at what had transpired in her absence.
Her family lands had been stripped away for supposedly 'aiding and abetting a criminal'. They belonged to the Charred Council now.
"When they shot me, some of the men healed me while I was asleep, they used a poisonous shot to keep us down. Now what are we going to do?" He chuckled as they lay on the soft fur bed in his house out in an obscure swampland planet.
"Don't worry about that, I'm going to teach you how to be like me." She looked at him and rolled onto his big chest. "I'd like that, I think we'd make one hell of a team." He chuckled. "Yes we would, yes we would."
Each Horseman had received the same note and the chess pieces, each with the mark on its bottom.
All except for Fury, but she didn't tell.
THAT'S IT FOR THE HUNTER FOR NOW. PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK.