Once the windows of Domino City's many skyscrapers were whizzing past Aster Phoenix on the freeway in a series of twinkling yellow dots, he retrieved his cellphone from his back pocket. After pressing a series of keys, there was a ping! sound, indicating the person at the receiving end had picked up. Without stopping to brake, the young professional pressed the device against his right ear by raising his shoulder.
"... Hey, Sartorius. I'm sorry I couldn't pick up before; I was at the condominium. It looks like I've made it past the rush hour traffic later than I expected, so I figured now was as good a time as any to give you a ring."
A series of indistinct muffled sounds then came from the receiver, but Aster nodded as if he understood each and every word.
"Yeah… Yeah, she was there. Alexis Rhodes."
"Huh?"
"No… I didn't see her older brother. After his disappearance, I honestly assumed the worst had happened."
"You don't think the Kaiser…? No…"
After a cherry-red convertible cut off his entry into the left lane, Aster let out an exasperated scoff. "Yeah, I saw him at the fair this afternoon. A brilliant ray of sunshine as he always is. Given what those street rats have been saying about him recently, he ought to be a little happier."
"... You didn't hear about it, Sartorius? Well, those thugs in the underworld slums have been acting up again. One of them even grew so bold as to deface the statue of the city's founder. I still can't forget those words graffiti'ed on the plaque — Bow before the monster born from the rotten womb of the underworld, Hell Kaiser Zane... People have already started talking about it in the city square, and I did not see happy faces."
The young man heaved a sigh as he watched the traffic in front of him slow to a crawl. He turned on the AM radio to muffle his conversation from any nearby busybodies that might overhear.
"In any case, it's not news we want to spread widely. The kind of panic that it could cause… well, it would do none of us any favors."
As the car radio continued to drone on about missing persons' reports and the influx of tourists the city could expect during the summer season, Aster went on:
"Listen, Sartorius. Before, you said the Kaiser's destiny was self-destruction… and I trusted you when you told me to leave him for the time being. It was no skin off my bones; I don't exactly like being in his company. Besides…"
"How long, I reasoned, could it take a man to off himself?"
Aster's grip on the steering wheel tightened. His knuckle bones pressed hard and white against his skin.
"Well, as it turns out, it takes an awful lot for a man to consider offing himself. Even scum like that so-called 'Hell Kaiser' can find a little value in their lives, I guess. But that got me to thinking. What if, in the meanwhile, the Kaiser's willing to get the whole city involved in his plans? What if, he won't stop until he's brought us all down with him in the aftermath?"
"...Huh? You think I sound worried? No, I'm just annoyed. That damn Kaiser's getting bolder by the second. Before, the bastard wouldn't have dared step foot onto a brightly lit street … now he couldn't care less if a single wrong move from him, and the Domino police would be on his tail."
Aster scoffed again as the car in front screeched to an abrupt halt. He slammed on the brakes. The sports car stopped only a few fortunate inches from the rear bumper. "What a ridiculous name, Hell Kaiser."
Cutting his annoyance short, more talking could be heard from the man on the receiving end. Aster sat up straight in his seat.
"Wait. You think he's grown bolder because of her… don't you…?"
"Mmhmm. Gotcha. I'll keep an eye on Miss Rhodes for a little bit longer."
"Hahaha! Oh, it won't be hard. Unlike the Kaiser, she isn't hideous."
When Alexis woke up, the shrill sound of the knife was still ringing in her ears.
But though her dream may have been over, the nightmare certainly hadn't been. As her eyesight clarified and brought the room into focus, she noticed the great shadow of another man looming over her body. He wore a hawklike iron mask, a wide brimmed hat, and a large dark overcoat that concealed any features that might identify him.
"So this is Nightshroud's baby sister…?" the man whispered. He could barely contain his giddiness as his sweaty, meaty hands traveled from her calves to the undersides of her bare feet. Tiny goosebumps broke out across her skin as unease knotted in the pit of her stomach. Alexis fought the impulse to gag as the man fondled her feet. He knelt down to suck on her toes.
A little voice in her head whispered:
Don't move.
If you move, you're dead.
The gleaming handgun at the masked man's belt made that all too clear.
Fortunately for Alexis, the woman at his side yanked the man away before he could manhandle her further. Alexis couldn't see very well in the darkness, but from what little she could see of her, the intruder's companion was tall, tan, and extremely muscular. She then hissed, "Stop that. You heard the Hell Kaiser. He said we were not to touch her. You know what he does to those who partake in insubordination."
Alexis's eyes darted to the woman. Now that she was in full view, it was easier to take in her appearance. The woman wasn't just tall, no. She was tall and sinewy with long legs and lean muscles like an Amazon, and the thin chord of a crossbow shined like silver across her back.
But then, as her brown eyes traveled from the masked man to the Amazonian assassin, the knot that had been forming in Alexis's stomach was suddenly pulled taut.
These intruders all had weapons.
And she left hers in the damn safe.
In a singsong tone, the dark haired man sneered, "Oh, I am positively quivering in my boots, Tanya. We are the rulers of these streets! We are the Shadow Riders of Domino City! What harm could possibly come to us here —"
Crawling in from the broken window, another woman with long gossamer hair rasped, "After witnessing what he has done to Nightshroud, you ought to be vvvvvery afraid of the Hell Kaiser, Titán. Do not forget the oath which you swore to him."
Titán fought back a derisive scoff. "Pardon me if I am not so awed by your paramour, Camula. If I swore any oath to him, I assure you I did it only out of a sense of self-preservation and nothing more."
The Amazonian — Tania, Alexis thought — barked out a short halting laugh. "Oh, Camula only wishes that monster was her lover. She can't go more than two moments without waxing poetic about HER Kaiser. His eyes are ssssso black and beautiful. But I bet she's never seen the underside of his bedsheets —"
The woman Camula swore aloud. Slapped Tania across the face.
Enraged, Tania then lunged at Camila, grabbing her by her long sheets of seaweed-green hair and digging her nails into her pale and unblemished skin. This however proved to be a fortunate diversion for Alexis, because as the two women continued to quarrel amongst themselves, Titán had to step away from her bedside and pull them apart. As the man began to reprimand them both, Alexis slipped quietly behind the bed and crawled out the open door on all hands and knees.
She would need to be careful. Her intruders were all armed: Titán with a pistol, Tanya with a crossbow, and Camila with a pair of throwing knives underneath the slit of her slinky, form-fitting dress.
And they all had these strange tattoos. The entirety of the design was hard to see, but the layers of the Shadow Riders' dark clothing weren't thick enough to obscure the tattoo completely.
Printed on the Shadow Riders' skin in some shape or form was the image of a dragon. But the tattoo wasn't of an Eastern dragon, a creature pictured with inappropriately small limbs attached to a rippling serpentine body, covered in scales in vibrant colors of red and orange and blue. No, the design took after the corpse of a Western dragon, drawn with stiff, angular strokes and filled in with drab colors of gray, black, and blue. Only adding to its menacing appearance were the jagged spikes that jutted out from its deformed robotic claws.
… They really were hideous.
Alexis shook her head quickly. Spat out strands of blonde hair that had fallen into her mouth.
Get to the safe; find the gun. Then you can start asking questions.
She continued crawling. As the thick bristles of the carpet scraped against her knees, the young woman cursed herself. Why hadn't she taken the gun? It wouldn't have hurt to have it by her bedside. Or better yet, underneath her pillow...
In truth, Alexis knew why she hadn't taken it. But admitting it was a more difficult matter altogether.
As Alexis heard the intruder's arguing simmer down into silence, she cursed herself again.
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
You should've taken the gun, silly stupid girl.
Even more stupid, however, was the expectation that her disappearance would go unnoticed for long. When Alexis was under the minibar, she heard the man Titan swear, "Shit. Where did she go?"
Tania hissed, "The Hell Kaiser will NOT be pleased with us if we let his pet scamper away. Find her."
Alexis had been halfway through inputting the code when she froze.
Who was this Kaiser they kept speaking of?
Wait. These people had broken into her home so she could be his pet?
Alexis ground her teeth together.
No way she'd let that happen.
No way in hell.
After his nightly walk by the lighthouse, the Kaiser returned to an abandoned warehouse near the pier. Tonight there would be no cage matches, so the many elegant tables in front of the steel bars were deserted. In fact, the entirety of the warehouse was empty, save for three of the Kaiser's most trusted subordinates: Zwei, Drei, and Eins. Like those who had sworn an oath of loyalty to him, they had also been branded with the Cyberdark insignia.
It was just as well. The Kaiser did not very much enjoy having company while he ate. He had business to attend to.
Midway through his meal, a heavyset and shaggy haired man came to the Kaiser's table. Zwei recognized the marking on his skin. He was a Shadow Rider. The Kaiser, sitting across from him, lifted his jaw as a form of recognition.
"You have news for me," he said.
The man bowed deeply and stiffly, as if his body could only move in increments of 45 degree angles. "Kaiser."
Unmoved by his show of fealty, the Kaiser only stared at him, unblinking. Well?
The older man fidgeted with the metal at his zipper,
"... we were unable to retrieve the girl."
A sharp intake of breath was the only sound that came from the young man. His next question was one word long.
"What?"
The man twitched again. "The other Shadow Riders have failed in your task, sir. About the girl, Miss Rhodes. We were unable to capture her."
The Kaiser did not choke, did not even flinch, but there was the slightest pause, a moment of absolute stillness that came and went so quickly, his subordinate would not have seen it if he weren't looking for it. But the signs of the Kaiser's mounting displeasure were present. Faint, but still present. As the younger man picked up his fork, lifted up the piece of bloody steak to his mouth, and then began to chew, a muscle protruded from his jaw, like a large piece of glass was lodged just beneath the skin.
After a few moments of this, chewing, and chewing, and still more chewing, he spat out the meat onto a napkin. The raw pink mass was unrecognizable as coming from any kind of animal.
"And what," the Kaiser said finally, "do your associates have to say for themselves?"
The man looked away. A terrible mistake on his part. "They beg for your mercy, Kaiser. Y-You see..."
Be quiet, Zwei mouthed, but his superior cut him off with:
"What IS it," the Kaiser said. The arteries in the young man's neck were now visible against the sheen of hard muscle.
"The girl may not have survived the encounter. F-from what I know, there was an altercation between her and two of the Shadow Riders at the apartment —"
The chair legs scraped against the stone floor, krrrrrrssssshHHH. Faster than humanly possible, the Kaiser was now standing up and grasping the man with one hand in his matted hair. In his other hand, he had positioned the table so that the edge of his steak knife was flush with the side of his face.
In the next moment, the Kaiser brought the man's head smashing against the edge of the table. Serrated steel pierced human flesh and then bone. Blood spattered the walls in wild looping patterns of dark crimson. The screams splitting the air were loud enough to shatter walls and take the color right out of paint.
But the Kaiser was not done.
He brought the man's head into the edge.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The screams worsened into shrieks, then sobs, then those too died on the tip of his tongue.
When there was a dark gaping hole in the man's head where he had once grown hair, the Kaiser flung him to the floor, and the man lay there, unmoving. Bits and pieces of stringy brain matter were still hanging out of the hole.
The reason for their failure hadn't mattered.
It never had.
The Kaiser didn't give a shit about their little domestic drama, the quarrels, the failed kidnapping, their remorse.
He didn't give a shit about any of them.
Sunk back in the chair, the Kaiser's subordinate found he could not move, and the two men sat there in silence for a long time.
Then the Kaiser looked down at his fork. A piece of rare steak was still speared on the end. He sat down and then lifted his fork once again to his mouth.
A faint chuckling emerged from the man in a low rumble. "Huh... My meal tastes better. That's funny."
He swallowed. The young man then looked at his subordinate and lowered his fork. His dark blue eyes darkened to a shade just shy of pitch black. A low growl escaped him. "Eat, Zwei."
And Zwei ate. He ate, because he knew what would happen if he did not. He ate until his stomach hurt. Then, once they had finished their meal, the Kaiser sighed. Motioned to another subordinate.
"Drei. Clean this up."
"Understood, Kaiser."
His dutiful servant dragged the lifeless body away into the dark. Without looking up from his plate of congealed fat and flesh and blood, the Kaiser then rasped:
"I want to see her."
The older man opened his mouth and just as quickly closed it. He knew better than to say another word— the Kaiser was in one of his black moods. During these periods, it was best to do as he said.
Zwei gingerly reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a slim piece of plastic. The old ID card was old, yet he recognized the high schooler from the ice rink immediately. The girl in the photo was a little younger, her face softer even if her expression was not. On her freshman ID, Alexis Rhodes couldn't have topped five feet with her shoulders back, but no one could see those curves and think of her as a child. Even with her wide, naïve eyes.
But he had to admit the whole effect the Rhodes girl had on him — though her face motionless, forever trapped on film — was unsettling. She had an innocent yet strong willed look about her that made you want to protect her. That, or tear her apart.
Framed in artificial golden light, Alexis was an digital angel, preserved for the world's eyes on shitty school-grade plastic.
Zwei pulled her ID card from his pocket and placed it on the table, passing it to the younger man. The Kaiser then tapped a fingernail against the ID, intermittently obscuring her face.
"Alexis," the Kaiser whispered. As the memory of her soft, dark-lashed eyes floated up before him, he could feel himself honing his desire, sharpening his hunter's instinct like a blade against a well-oiled whetstone.
He slowly closed his eyes and murmured her name again, as if compelling himself into a self-induced trance. A trance in which only speaking her name would bring him relief. "Mine."
Alexis had walked the remainder of the night without stopping.
After the break in at the condo, no place had been safe. Worse yet, she couldn't go anywhere outside the city, because her wallet and her car were still at the condo. The only thing she had with her was her wits and her cell phone.
Fat lot of help either of those would do now.
But she had the gun. That she did have. She still had a way to protect herself.
And it hadn't been easy getting away. The moment after she had pulled open the safe and retrieved the pistol, Titán had spotted her. He grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her so that she was underneath him. His beady rodent eyes traveled from her feet up her body until he could smile into the depths of her eyes.
"It is not just your feet that are lovely," he whispered.
She reared up and donkey-kicked him in the soft area between his thighs. After Titan went down, it had been two on one. She thought it would be an easy task to escape through the front door.
"Boarding school bitch," Camula hissed, blocking her only path of escape. "What… what does he SEE in you?"
Alexis's eyes narrowed. She recognized that kind of resentful, bitter tone all too well. Entitled, selfish brat. What kind of hardship have you known?
It was true. Alexis had grown up without knowing economic hardship, and she was always surrounded by many friends, superficial as their ties may have been. But she had known loss, and she did not need to justify herself to this woman.
But how… how could she win? These people were all more experienced than her. Alexis hadn't seen the inside of a martial arts gym since she was 6, and thanks to Atticus, she had only just read how to use a gun a few hours ago!
As Camula lunged for her, Alexis dived under the dining room table. Gathered her thoughts.
"Without power, you cannot survive in this world. Then you must win at any cost."
Alexis hadn't known why those words had come to her mind. But as she thought her situation over, she realized she had been afraid of that which the gun represented. She had been afraid something more existed under cover of dark.
Something old and long forgotten.
Atticus had tried to hide this from her.
But there would be no hiding.
Not any more.
After firing a shot into the window as a distraction, Alexis leapt out from under the table. When the woman's head was turned, she threw both arms over Camula's bare shoulders and tunneled her fingernails into her skin. The woman howled and they both fell back, caught in a tumultuous tangle of limbs, and the woman's eyes darted up from Alexis's forehead to her own hair. Alexis yanked at the loose green strands and pulled it into a tangle. It would burn for a second, an angry, hurtful burning.
Good.
Camula's lips peeled back in a feral snarl as her gaze twisted to meet hers. Now Alexis saw her clenched incisors like fangs. She saw her claw-like fingernails opaque with blood. She knew that she could not lose. And Camula tried to muscle the girl's arms off her by forcefully twisting her shoulders in the opposite direction, but Alexis would not let go.
She had a lot of practice with that, not letting go.
"What are you waiting for? Shoot her!" Camula howled.
But her two companions were frozen in place. Tania shouted, "Camila, no, we need her unharmed! The Hell Kaiser —"
"What my dear Hell Kaiser does not know," she snarled, "will not hurt him."
Abruptly twisting her off, Camula threw Alexis off her back.
She stumbled against the wall —
And the broken window fell open.
Alexis glanced at her three assailants, then over her shoulder at the drop from the balcony to the pavement below.
Then jumped.
Now Alexis winced at the memory. The landing had been hard on her body, even worse on her feet. Worse yet was the distance she had traveled — at least 7 miles without shoes or even the comfort of socks to protect her feet, and her body was growing exhausted with no food or water for nourishment. The abandoned warehouse her brother's notes had led her to was located in a back alley on the outskirts of the city, facing an unpaved road that was abutting the walls of a large military storage compound.
It was a place where no one would be likely to notice someone hiding in the grass or behind a car. The whole effect was somehow sinister, but Alexis still set off through the early morning darkness along the unpaved, ill-lit road.
Once Alexis came to the entrance of the warehouse, she pushed open the large boarded door. Descended down the decaying stairs.
Waiting for her in the center of the main room was a steel cage.
A feeling of shock came over Alexis, rendering her dumb and mute. She turned in a slow circle at the top of the stairs, trying to take the whole warehouse in, but it was too much. Her eyes couldn't see half of what was there and her brain couldn't process half of what she saw.
And how Alexis wished she could unsee what she had seen.
There was a man inside the steel cage room already, his wrists and ankles bound to the cement wall with heavy iron shackles. Blood thickly coated his chest and parts of his face, trailed down from a shackle fastened around his neck, and his head lolled forward at an unnatural angle. As Alexis drew closer, she noticed the man's chest did not expand or contract to let in air.
Running forward and down the stairs, Alexis then reached forward to take the man's hand, but her own fingers clenched into a fist before they could graze his skin. She stared at the prisoner, her mouth slack, her lower lip quivering with shock.
The man would move no longer.
He was dead.
Her brown eyes constricted into thin pinpricks.
No…
Her eyes traveled the length of the walls. There were markings on the faded brick. For some reason, it looked oddly familiar.
Then the image of her, Atticus, and Zane came to her mind.
On her brother's forearm…
Hidden under his school jacket…
It was the same marking. It was the same tattoo printed on the skin of the Shadow Riders.
Atticus… why do you have that tattoo, too?
She couldn't deal with it. She ran.
As Alexis bolted from the warehouse, a great feeling was swelling inside her, threatening to explode. She did not know the feeling well, but she understood it to be grief.
Grief at only thinking of herself, of not thinking about her brother, of not thinking to free the man, of not thinking to give him some measure of dignity that had not been afforded him when he still lived. Once her grief had become too great to bear, Alexis dissolved into silent weeping on the ground outside the entrance — but only the tremors wracking her body and her uneven breathing would give her away.
When Alexis regained some measure of control, trembling, she brought her cell phone up to her waist. She scrolled until she found his name, which didn't take too long. He was never more than three names down on her list of RECENT CALLS.
Jaden's voice was thick with static. "Hunh? Alexis? It's a little early to be calling, isn't it? It's almost 5 in the morning…"
She breathed into the phone mic. "Listen to me, Jaden."
The bedsheets rustled. Jaden was sitting up.
"Whatever happens to me, I want you to know."
"Huh? Alexis, what're you talking about? Slow down, OK? What's going on?"
Into the tiny speaker, Alexis whispered, "I don't know. I moved to Domino to learn more about Atticus, but I still don't understand the truth about my big brother, and I don't want to ask any more about it. I want to eat pizza with everyone again. I want everything to go b-back to the way it was. I want to go home."
The tiny voice in her head whispered: Even though that may not be possible anymore…?
Alexis took in another shaky breath and cast away the man's hollow fish-eyed stare from her mind. "I'm scared, Jay."
She then heard a sharp whistling from the receiver and recognized the sound as coming from Jaden. He'd never been the best at remaining calm (his final Calculus exam grade only one of the many examples of that), yet he was doing a surprisingly good job of maintaining his composure. Without missing a beat, he said, "OK, Alexis. Don't worry. We'll get over there as soon as we can."
"Thank you." She was crying harder now. "Thank you so much, Jaden. Do you know the address to the Domino City pier? You should get a pen and paper - "
From behind her, a man's voice then said:
"Don't you remember what they said about curious cats, Lexy?"
She wheeled around and her heart leapt into her throat. All night, just out of sight, the lean shadow of a man was standing in the corner behind the warehouse.
Alexis pointed the pistol at him. "Stay b-back."
Undeterred by the threat of the gun, he took one step forward. Then another. His lips curled into a smile.
"What a," the man drawled, "cute toy."
Lunging forward, he grabbed her by the forearm and wrested the gun from her hand, all in one fluid and violent motion. He then fired at the pavement until there was only the sound of the hammer clicking fruitlessly against the empty chamber. He then threw the pistol a great distance, and Alexis watched it become lost in the tall weeds.
She took one step back, but his attention did not stray, and he held fast to her arm. His grip was like a vice.
"Please let me go," she begged. "I… I don't have anything you want. Please."
He chuckled. "Oh, but I think you do."
Alexis shook her head. "I, I don't even know who you are," she tried again.
The shadow paused.
"Forgotten me already, huh," he laughed, but the sound was a harsh one, and without a single trace of good humor. As the sun rose, the man's face slanted into view. In the light of the early morning, with locks of blue-black hair swept back from his face, the man's features were harder, harsher, and somehow all the more beautiful.
It was the face of her old protector.
Her old tormentor.
Though his face had lost its pubescent softness and was more drawn, she could see the young man's steady, aloof expression remained. Still, Alexis had to shape his name in her mouth several times before her voice caught up to the impulse to speak.
"Zane," she whispered.
"Nice to see you again," Zane said. "Alexis."