Hello everybody, welcome back to another exciting chapter of The Darkling Thrush!
This chapter is coming late, sorry about that, stuff happens to me. But I hope this more than makes up for that fact!
As always I'd like to thank everyone who left a review last chapter! Thank You Baoh joestar, Hellbreaker, VergilXSparda and Shaded Azure for your comments, it really does keep this story going.
Also, I have a question for you all. I checked out the analytics for this story, and the second most viewed chapter is the "Violette" Interlude. Like there's no contest for second place, it's been read more than the majority of the rest of the story. So, I'd like to ask, why is that so? I'm just intrigued, like, why that chapter? IDK.
Anyways, on with the chapter!
LII
Tears of Venezier: Part 2
Traveling across town onward to their destination, a place called 'The Fields' by the local Sheriff, Russel and his team were afforded the luxury of sightseeing. Venezier through the years had evolved into a tourist trap, there was bound to be something worth seeing. But the further along they went on their way, the newly formed team found nothing distinct t enough to warrant their attention.
In fact, if anything, they were the attraction worth seeing. As they strode through empty streets, the local towns people who loitered outside of businesses and homes, watching them in silence. Wherever they went, it was the same, people would stop whatever they were doing and just watch them pass by. To say the least, Russel and the rest of his team found it quite unsettling.
"Almost like they'd never seen a horse before." Marie-Anne scoffed as they hurried along, not wishing to linger.
Though the Huntsmen's choice of transportation was indeed odd given the times, Russel very much doubted that was the cause of the people's interest. The Thrush looked off to the side and met the people's stares. It was then that he found something there, within their eyes, something that weighed down their faces, the silent pain of despair.
Russel thought back to when they'd initially entered the town, how the trio of men in red and black had confronted them, demanding to know why it was they'd come to Venzier and how they'd threatened the Huntsmen. Then Russel thought of the Sheriff, how his sudden appearance had frightened the Bartender. The Sheriff the echoed the trio of men's words, demanding that they don't cause trouble.
He thought of their words, how they'd been so fixated on the trouble they would bring to this town. But now, now that Russel had really looked at the townsfolk and seen their troubled faces, he was beginning to think that the Sheriff wasn't so much worried about those he was charged to protect, more so that he was afraid for something else entirely. Now, whatever that was, was the real question.
"I think this is it." Dove spoke aloud, catching Russel's ear.
The Thrush snapped to attention, having lost himself in his thoughts. He hadn't even realized they're trek had taken them to the edge of the town once more. With the sea to their North and the mountain line dead ahead, Russel and his team found themselves face to face with a long stretch of open land, filled with hills and the makings of stone walls that had fallen into disrepair. If they were to consider anything to be titled 'The Fields', this most certainly would be their best bet.
But as far as the Huntsmen could tell, there was no sign the man they sought, in fact, it appeared as though there wasn't a living thing around at all. Venturing forward proved to be their only option, as their scope was limited by the surrounding hills. Past dry barren land they went, over atop a plentiful of hills until the town behind them was no longer within view.
As more time passed by, the less certain of The Sheriff's directions they became. They paused atop another hill and noticed the sun beginning to descend, soon enough night would befall them. If they doubled back into town, they would be able to grab a room at the local Inn. They could always resume their search tomorrow.
But just as they began to turn back, something caught Russel's eye. Out of the corner of his eye and edging right out from behind another hill, the thrush could make out what appeared to be a smokestack. They quickly descended down the hill then rode around, bypassing the other, and found a quiet little hut, the first sign of someone living out on The Fields.
There was no guarantee that the hut belonged to the man they sought, but it was their only lead, so the Huntsmen opted to investigate the dwelling. They tugged on their reins, calling for their horses to stop in their tracks. One by one they dismounted their steeds and approached the wide open plain. They tied the reins of their horses to a lowly stump in the ground then headed for the lone hut.
Reaching the front door, they did the polite thing and knocked. "Hello?" Dove asked aloud as he gently knocked on the dried out wooden door. "Anyone in there?"
"You call that knocking?" Marie-Anne shot Dove a disbelieving look. "This is knocking." She said, before pushing the CRDL boy aside and banging her fist on the door. "Hey Kevin, you in there?!" She then reeled back her hand and banged on the door once more, this time however, Marie-Anne's hand burst through the wood, causing a large portion of the sun dried door to crumple.
"I guess we're breaking and entering." Russel remarked, smirking slightly as he observed Marie-Anne struggle to remove her hand. "Seeing as your hands already in there, why not just unlock the door for us?"
"Oh shut it, Russel." Marie-Anne said, sparing a glare at her fellow Oakwood native. She then returned her attention to the door, but then, instead of resuming her attempts to separate herself from the door, Marie-Anne leaned inward causing Russel's smirk to grow even wider. The DNCE member struggled and cursed, attempting to find the door's lock.
"Need some help there?" Danny raised a curious brow as they found themselves waiting on Marie-Anne.
"Why don't we just save time and knock the door down, eh?" Marie-Anne grunted as she pushed her entire arm through the hole in the door, attempting to get a better angle on the lock.
"Because that would be impolite." Dove said as he played look out, keeping an eye to their backs lest they get jumped by some roaming Grimm or worse. "How would you like it if you found your door down busted down?"
"Pissed off." Marie-Anne grunted as she continued to struggle, blindly searching the door. "Exactly how I feel right now."
"Sure you don't need any help?" Russel snickered.
"I said shut it Russel!" Marie-Anne jerked backwards in order to shout at the Thrush. However, in doing so, the DNCE girl ripped apart another section of the door.
"Look at what you did." Russel gestured to the ruined door, earning a spiteful glare from his peer.
"Of for the love of Monty," Danny let out an exhausted sigh. "Just break down the whole door then why don't you?"
"With pleasure." Marie-Anne said as she maintained her glare at Russel. Without a word, she drew her sword from its hip sheath and slashed forward, cutting a large portion of the door off its hinges and causing it to fall back into the hut. The chunk of door collapsed onto the ground, soon followed by another that had given way seemingly by itself, leaving only the handle and enough wood to support it.
"You know what we should've done instead of hacking the door down?" Russel said aloud, earning a cautious glance from Marie-Anne. The Thrush then took a step forward, approaching the knob he reached out and turned it. Unceremoniously, he pulled it from the res to the house with ease.
"You mean to tell me I spent all that time trying to unlock an already open door?!" Marie-Anne shouted in dismay.
"To be fair, you'd still be wrong." Russel said, raising the door handle for all to see. "It doesn't even have a lock." He gestured to the lack of a key hole before tossing the handle over to Marie-Anne.
The DNCE girl caught the door knob in her hands and glared down at it. "Oh for fucks sake." She sneered before tossing it over her shoulder.
"Can we just go inside now?" Dove called over his shoulder to his team. "It's getting dark."
"Not afraid of the dark, are you Dove?" Danny raised a brow at the CRDL boy.
"No," The flight capable boy said as he kept his eyes trained on the surrounding area. "Just the monsters lurking in it."
Without further delay, the team entered the hut. It was a small building on the outside, but for some reason it seemed to be larger on the inside. There were tables and desks scattered around what could be considered to be the living room and appeared to be gathering dust. Upon further inspection, given the gathered dust layer, it appeared that there used to be large machinery that once laid there.
Ventured further within the hut, finding drawers in the kitchen lazily opened and their contents missing. The longer they searched the hut, the more it appeared as though someone had come by and looted the place. After searching the majority of the hut, the team focused their attention on one remaining door, which given by the lay out of the hut, they assumed to be the living quarters.
"You want me to open this one?" Russel looked to Marie-Anne and smirked.
"Drop Dead, Russel." Marie-Anne spoke icily, glaring daggers at the Thrush.
With a laugh, Russel reached for the door and pushed it open and took a step inside. Instantly, he was smacked by a deathly odor. The Thrush gagged, as if he'd just been punched in the gut. "Ugh, what the-" He struggled to find the words as he stumbled into the room.
Too caught up over the foul stench that filled. Russel tripped over something blocking the pathway into the room and fell face first onto the wood. First there was the sound of Russel smacking against the wood, followed closely by sound of Marie-Anne's laughter.
"Ha, ha, very funny." Russel muttered as he pulled himself off the floor. He then shot a curious look back towards whatever it was that stumbled him. The Thrush didn't know what he would find, but the last thing he expected to find was a dead body.
"Oh, crap." Dove's mouth fell open as he and the pair of DNCEs entered the room.
"What are the odds this guy's Kevin?" Marie-Anne asked, sounding quite disappointed that their search ended with them all cluttered around a dead body.
Russel walked around the room, looking for anything to help identify the man. The first place to look would be to search the body, but he very much doubted he'd find anything with the name 'Kevin' on it. Instead, he thought back to the Kevin he knew back in Vale, how the man lived dual lives, one as a strange supplier of illegal goods down some alley and the other a middle class suburbanite.
Sorting through the nearby closet, Russel found his answer to whether or not the man was Kevin. Pulling the closet door open, the Thrush found a small machine with a half done fake I.D. resting within. "Yeah, that's him." He sighed.
"Poor bastard." Marie-Anne said as she knelt down beside 'Kevin' and pointed to a pair of bullet holes in the back of his head. "He didn't even see it coming." She shook her head.
"How long you think he's been dead?" Dove questioned as he held his nose, choosing to breathe through his mouth than deal with the foul odor that filled the room.
"I'd give it three weeks," Danny said a she joined Marie-Anne on the floor beside Kevin. He pointed to the man's decaying dried up face and the maggots that writhed under its skin. "But given the environment in which it was left, out in the middle of a hot ass desert in a box without air condition, I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's only been a week."
"You some sort of dead-body-oligist, Danny?" Russel raised a brow at the team leader's quick assessment.
"Something like that." Danny shrugged a she and Marie-Anne stood from the floor. "Well, turns out our man on the inside's been dead a good long while. There goes our leads."
"You think The Sheriff knew about this?" Marie-Anne asked.
"I'd be surprised if he didn't." Russel remarked bitterly. "You guys notice how odd this town's been? Not exactly the most approachable of people."
"This has been a wash." Danny sneered before heading out the door.
Seeing as their lead to finding Sky was literally a dead end, Russel and the remainder of his team followed Danny out the door. With disappointed and weary sighs, the team mounted their horses and began to head on back. Though they faced a substantial setback, they would not give up on Sky, rather, they would resume their search in the morning.
Russel held his head high, watching the sun begin it's descent over the horizon. Hues of orange cascaded across the land as the long shadows of the horses and their riders extended for what must have been miles. Across the hills which they'd already traveled they went, the morbid sight of the deceased Kevin ever present in his mind during the hour long ride back to town.
Given how they'd found the hut and the majority of valuables missing, Russel could have simply left well enough alone and assumed that it had been a burglary gone wrong. But that match up, not with how they found the body. Whoever it was that killed Kevin, they'd gotten the drop on him in his own bedroom. With that, coupled with the distance of the town and its people, Russel couldn't help but feel like there was more going on than he would like.
Along the way, over another hill they went, as if they were chasing the sun, the darkness of night began to crowd around them. But there was another source of light that beamed through the darkening sky. Over his shoulder, Russel looked and to their back he found far off across the desolate land he spotted a low burning light out in the distance, closer towards the mountains of the old Venezier. With these darn hills all strewn the land he couldn't be too sure, but from what he could make out, Russel could speculate the light to be a camp fire.
Investigating the source of light should've been a priority, after all there was no harm in checking, and maybe it was Sky living on the outskirts of town just as Kevin had. But it was getting dark, that was when Grimm would come out to hunt. And really, after the last two weeks, dealing with Grimm was the last thing any of them wanted.
Night had fallen when the team arrived back into town. It was eerie in a way, to pass through the town in the dark, the people kept their distance and the nearby ocean was unordinary, unlike the sea off the sea by Beacon which Russel had become accustomed to during his stay.
The Thrush thought back to his first night back at the academy, how he'd slept in the auditorium alongside every other initiate. It'd been so loud, everybody engaging in conversation, especially when the lights went out, his fellow aspiring students continued to talk, believing that their hushed tones and low whispers would go unnoticed. But here in the middle of town, the only sound that filled Russel's ears were the sounds of his horse's hooves smacking the dirt road.
The second night, after the excursion into the Emerald Forest, that had been when Russel had heard the nearby sea, listening to the waves thrash against the Cliffside, from open window of the CRDL dorm room. It was then he realized how this town unsettled him. They were so close to the shore and yet he couldn't hear it, not even amongst the deathly quiet townsfolk who kept their distance and minded themselves, he could not hear the ocean. There was no thrashing, just the eerie stillness for which the town of Venezier was famed for.
Arriving at a nearby Inn at the center of the town, Russel and his team took to business. Using the funds in which they were granted by Goodwitch before setting off on their mission, they acquired feed for their steeds and booked rooms for three nights.
The Old Innkeeper was quiet as Russel approached, the team's purse in hand. She didn't once make eye contact, purposely avoiding his gaze. The Thrush held back the urge to question the woman, as it was they weren't the only ones present within the Inn. An idle glance to the corner and Russel found another one of those men in red and black clothing, the embroidered yellow letter 'B' in the form of a rooster's head brightly shining in contrast with his dark attire.
Russel watched the man, and the man watched back, a simple tilt of hat in regard for the Thrush as he leaned back against a nearby wall looking something akin to a sentry standing at his post. Or, as Russel thought darkly, like a jailor keeping his prisoners in check.
Without a word exchanged to either the man in the corner or the Innkeeper, Russel paid for their next couple night and grabbed their room keys. Without delay he signaled his team and they head up to check out their temporary digs.
They split up, two to a room. The dunces went to one room, the CRDL boys to the other, it made things simpler that way. Russel grabbed his room key and opened the door. A soon a she did, he could practically hear Dove swoon. Stepping into the room they found actual beds. A nice change of pace since they as well as rest of Vale had been reduced to sleeping on the rubble of their sacked city.
"Oh man I've missed this." Dove contently sighed as he reclined on one of the two beds within their shared room.
"This your first time roughing it?" Russel asked as he strutted across the room, making his way to the window. As it happened to be, here on the fourth floor of the Inn, Russel found their room had prime view of the surrounding coast.
"I've been camping before." Dove said as he kicked off his boots, giving his sock covered toes a good flex, earning soft cracks. "But you'd find pitching a tent to be quite different from sleeping in a ruined hardware store."
"Tell you what, next time we're back in Vale we'll put it to a vote where we stay." Russel said as he stared out the window, off to the nearby ocean. The Thrush could see no waves. The water was still, completely unmoving. But that was not that he could see, the water itself frozen in place acted as an appropriately, mirroring the sky above. Mimicking the sky above, the ocean was a sea of stars. "Quite the view." Russel admired.
"Put it to a vote? Dove raised a brow at his teammate's words. "Not exactly a vote if there's only two of us." He said, a dower look befalling the youngest of the CRDL boys.
Russel glanced over his shoulder, tearing his eyes from the starlight sight and turned to face Dove fully. "We're going to find him." He said definitively.
"Well, yeah, I know. Just hope when we do he's not like Kevin." Dove sighed.
Russel frowned at the thought. The idea of adding Sky's name to the thousands already dead made him feel ill. So the Thrush pushed past it, resolving remain hopeful for their friend.
"You think thy got anything decent to eat downstairs?" Russel asked changing the subject, while at the same time gesturing to his gut. It had been a while since they had a cooked meal.
Dove gasped, realizing they were no longer living amongst rats and could actually find something worth eating. "You think they got sundaes?" He shot the Thrush a hopeful look.
"Why the hell not?" Russel smirked. "Come on," He said, pushing himself away from the windows and heading towards the door. "Let's see if the others want get out and about."
Hopping off the bed, Dove followed Russel out the door. The pair of CRDL boys made their way down the hall, reaching the Dunces' room. He then promptly knocked on the door. There was a murmur behind the door followed by frantic muted voices. Russel raised a brow as he heard the tossing of sheets. Not two seconds later the door budged open ever so slightly with a disheveled looking Marie-Anne peering outward.
"Oh, hey Russel," An out of breathe Marie-Anne managed to greet with a smile, sticking her head outward while the remainder of her body was obscured by the door. "How are you?"
"Uh…good, I guess," Russel squinted at his fellow Oakwood native with suspicion. He then jotted a thumb down the hall to the stairs. "Dove and I are getting something to eat, you and Danny want in on this?"
"No, no I don't think so." Marie-Anne quickly shook her head, stray strands of her dull dyed hair loosely falling to cover her face. "I think we're going to stay in. Need all our rest if we're going to continue our search tomorrow."
Russel blinked as Marie-Anne drew a bare arm to wipe the loose strands of hair away from her face. Cocking his head to the left, Russel peered past Marie-Anne through the cracked open door and into the room. It was there Thrush made out the distinct clothing of both Danny and Marie-Anne lying on the floor.
Marie-Anne appeared flush as Russel arched a brow upward in surprise. "You mean to tell me it takes you five minutes to open an already unlocked door, but it takes less than one to get to hankey pankey?"
"Oh drop dead, Russel." Marie-Anne glared before retracting her head back through the doorway and firmly shutting the door in Russel's face.
"So they ready to go or what?" Dove asked, appearing behind the Thrush.
"I don't believe so, no." Russel shook his head before heading for the stairs.
Down flights the duo went before finally stepping into the lobby. To Russel's interest, the darkly dressed man from earlier was nowhere to be seen, as was the Innkeeper. It was then that the Thrush swore that the next time the opportunity should present itself he would ask someone just why they dressed up like that.
Russel and Dove walked across the street, under the light of the few lamp posts within the town square. Passing by the Sheriff's office, as well as the local saloon, they found themselves a diner and stepped inside.
There was much going on within the diner, just a pair of those darkly dressed men sitting of fin the corner and a few normal civilians for patrons while the workers hustled to churn out chow for their small clientele. Though they had their pick of the lot, from booths to tables, Russel and Dove opted for a pair of stools by the counter.
"Evening." Russel said, waving to a waitress.
The Waitress simply nodded in acknowledgement but said nothing. While the Waitress walked off to deliver plates of food to the two darkly dressed men in the corner, Russel and Dove busied themselves with the minutia of finding something decent to eat in the menu.
"They got any sundaes, Dove?" Russel questioned as he flipped through the multi-page menu.
"As far as I can tell? Nope." Dove frowned in disappointment as he read through the desert section. "Though, they do have ice cream floats."
"Not necessarily a loss then?" The Thrush glanced away from his menu.
"Could be better," Dove shrugged. "But could be a helluva lot worse."
"True." Russel admitted before setting his menu down, having already chosen his meal. While waiting for the Waitress to return, the Thrush took to sightseeing, examining the layout of the diner.
The diner itself has full with character, old mementos of the past hung like ornaments, levitating off the ground, suspended by wire. There was a boats steering wheel as well as several pick axes that just floated there. The red and white checker painted walls were adorned with photographs. It was a visual storybook that told the history of both the diner and that of Venezier.
Russel followed the photos, from images of early settlers in their mining days, to that of some eighty years prior when the old military ship yard was still in operation. Bright smiles littered the frames of black and white to that full color. Trailing the photos to the present, Russel found men dressed up in ten galloon hats wearing Sheriff stars, posing around the very same counter he now sat at.
As Russel continued to view the photos, it appeared he'd stumbled across the birth of a tradition. Familiar faces began to appear more frequently, mixed in with fresh faces belonging to the diner's staff. Russel could practically see them age before his very eyes. And soon Russel found himself coming to the end of the photos. The Waitress herself began to appear closer towards the end.
But there was something that puzzled Russel. As he reached the end, he'd seen faces appear and disappear, and yet, he'd never once seen the Sheriff who'd greeted him and his team in the saloon earlier in the afternoon.
While the pair of CRDL boys continued to wait for their order to be filled, a familiar figure found his way into the diner. The Waitress, who was making her way back from delivering the plates of food to the men in the corner, had to catch herself before she could let out a surprised shriek.
Having caught sight of the Waitress' surprised expression from the corner of his eye, Russel looked over his shoulder and found Sheriff Brussels making the long stride over to the counter.
"This seat taken?" The Sheriff not so much asked as he was already planting his rear down in the seat.
"Howdy to you too, Sheriff," Russel said, eyeing Brussels cautiously.
"So, how're you boys doing this night? You find your guy?" Brussels asked, causing both Dove and Russel to exchange an unsure look.
"You know," Russel said, leaning back in his seat. "It was the strangest thing, how we went out there just like you said, and what we found was a dead man."
"Kevin's dead?" The Sheriff dramatically gasped. "What a shame, what a shame."
"So you're telling us you really did have no clue he was dead?" Russel spoke quietly, meeting the Sheriff's haughty gaze.
"You trying to say something, boy?" Brussel's glared, giving one of his muscular biceps a good flex.
"Kevin's hut was ransacked, probably been dead for over a week. Isn't it the Sheriff's job to take care of his people?" Russel said, unfazed by the subtle threat. "Then again, for a Sheriff you don't really seem to care. Everybody seems to be afraid of you." Russel gave a nod to the Waitress, who took opportunity to flee back to the kitchen.
"Well, now that I've mention it," The Thrush continued, pointing to the photos mounted on the wall. "How long have you been a Sheriff anyways? Can't be more than a year." He gave a nod to the most recent photo, one where the Waitress who'd just taken off appeared to look the same as she did now.
"Heh, got a regular amateur detective here," The Sheriff bit his lip and shook his head. "You know, it's usually only malcontents that ask for Kevin." He said, glancing out of the corner of his eye as four other individuals entered the diner. "Although there are some rare exceptions." Brussel's smirked as he maintained both Russel and Dove's undivided attention. "Those being Huntsmen."
"You think we're Huntsmen?" Dove questioned as one of the four men splintered off from the group, beginning to creep up on the CRDL boys from behind.
"Think? Shucks, I know you are." The Sheriff laughed. "Good rule of thumb? Huntsmen always travel in teams of four. And given the state of the world right now? I'd bet the people up in Vale must be real desperate for man power to let you little shits run around playing Hero."
"Can't help but notice you didn't deny any involvement in Kevin's death." Russel glared.
"What's there to deny? Not like you can do anything about it." Brussels smirked.
"We can stop you." Dove threatened.
"Stop me?" The Sheriff continued to laugh. "Shit, you can't even stop him." He pointed past Dove.
Suddenly, a large head reached out and grabbed a hold of the back of Dove's head. Caught completely by surprise, Dove was slammed face first against the cover. Russel quickly reached out and claimed the nearest piece of silverware he could grab and aimed to spin around and stab at Dove's attacker.
Unfortunately, Russel soon found himself being elbowed in the face Brussels. The Sheriff put all of his weight into the strike and successfully knocked the Thrush out of his stool and landing on his back against the floor.
Dove flailed around as he attempted to fight off his attacker, only for him to be plucked out of his seat and tossed into the air. Before the CRDL boy could even activate his semblance, his attacker quickly caught him by the leg and slammed him face first into a nearby table, breaking through the wood with plates and silverware scattering across the diner.
Russel groaned as he attempted to get back to his feet. But The Sheriff refused to give the Thrush the chance. Jumping out of his seat, Brussels approached Russel and lifted his boot above his head. The Sheriff then curb stomped Russel, earning a pained wail in response. The Thrush rolled over onto his side and spat up blood that began to fill his mouth, having cut the inside of his cheek against his teeth. But The Sheriff proved to be relentless, unleashing a barrage of kicks to his exposed back, proceeding to knock the wind out of him.
Dove struggled to his feet, attempting to overcome how disoriented he felt. The blows to the head did him no good. But his attacker gave him no reprieve. His attacker reached out and grabbed him by the throat before hauling Dove off the ground. Dove kicked and punched, doing all he could to break his attackers grasp, even attempting to whip out his sword. But his attacker simply smacked aside Dove's weapon and suspended him in the air.
Meeting his attacker at eye level, Dove's eyes widened in horror at the sight as well as the stench. The man holding him off the ground wore a heavily modified Great War era Atlesian helmet, with a pair of mix matched horns seemingly spot welded to the to. The cold unfeeling visor that hid away the man's eyes was crooked and fixed to make like a permanent glare. All while the helmet's faceplate appeared to be covered end to end with rotting flesh that hung and sagged disproportionately.
Dove didn't know whether he wanted to scream or vomit. Before he could decide on either option, the helmeted man head-butted the CRDL boy, knocking him out and letting him fall to the floor once more.
"Where's that tough guy shit now, huh?" Brussels taunted as he continued to kick at Russel.
The Thrush let out a cry before rolling over, to stab at the Sheriff with the piece of silverware he'd managed to grab. Russel furiously stabbed at Brussel's shins, only to find out too late he'd instead of a knife or even a fork, he'd grabbed a spoon. Glancing upward, Russel found the Sheriff shooting him an irritated look. Brussels the soundly kicked Russel across the jaw, knocking him on his back once more.
"Brussels, Coyote, I think our guests have had enough," A gentlemanly voice spoke in a refined yet commanding tone, causing both Brussels and Coyote to cease their onslaught on the CRDL boys.
"These two are Huntsmen, Doctor." Brussels pointed down to Russel's barely conscious form.
Russel glanced upward through blurry eyes to find the man who'd ordered their attackers to stop. It was then his gaze took him to a man surrounded by the leader of the trio of red and black dressed men who'd antagonized Russel and his team earlier in the afternoon and a burly fellow. The man stood wearing white dressed pants, an equally white under shirt and tie with a khaki vest. From what Russel could tell through his disoriented vision, the man giving the orders looked to have walked out of an archeologist magazine.
"I understand that, I also understand they won't be the last Huntsmen that wind up in our town." The man in white said in a scolding manner. "Thi complication, however, we'll need to accelerate our time table, but for now, I want you to stash them somewhere safe. You never know when you need a hostage."
"Yes sir," Brussels nodded before looking over his shoulder to the pair of red and black dressed men sitting at the booth in the corner. "You two," He shouted, pointing to the pair of men. "Take these boys to lockup."
Without a word the two men leapt out of their booths, leaving behind their warm meals and doing as they were commanded. "And what of the others, Dr. Kruger?" Brussels inquired as he fixed the pair of goggles that adorned his head. "There's still two more of them."
"Don't worry, we'll deal with them in time." The man in white, gave a nod to his burly companion, who nodded in kind. "But for the time being, however," Dr. Kruger watched on as Dove and Russel were dragged away. "Everything is fine."
So. Yeah. That happened.
I don't have much in the way of notes this time, can't say anything without giving away any potential spoilers for the rest of the arc.
It's been a while since we've seen these characters, their last appearance being in the Nebula arc. But this chapter sees the return of Dr. Kruger. And all I can say about the next couple chapters is, shit will go down.
I'll try to get another chapter out this week, it all very much depends on my current schedule. 'Til then, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Unti lnext time dear readers, later days!