I'd be proud of my progress if I didn't already have old chapters saved, anyway, on with the story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Night World, or anything related to their franchises. I only own the idea and any characters I make up.
Jaden scanned his surroundings for witches as he made his way along the alleys, munching on a chocolate bar. All he saw were brick buildings and street lamps.
'That's a shame. I'm on fire tonight, could skewer a few more freaks and be back in time for chemistry in the morning.'
He stopped and melded to the shadows on instinct as a cop car cruised down the street on patrol.
Jaden got an idea before smiling wryly. 'I know! I'll go see what the Shotguns are up to! If anyone knows where there's action in the city, they will!'
With that in mind, he headed for the north side of town. Half an hour later, he was ringing the buzzer in front of a brownstone building.
"Hello? Who's there?" A voice crackled out.
Instead of answering, Jaden said, "The night has a thousand eyes."
"The day, only one," Came a reply. "Hey, mate. Come on up."
Once inside, Jaden climbed a narrow staircase to a wooden door with a peephole at eye level. He faced it, undoing the scarf around his face.
It was the same one his mother wore. He wore it wrapped around his head like a veil so that only his eyes could be seen, and even they were in shadow.
He shook out his hair, knowing the person on the other side could see it.
A boy dressed in black with short, dual-brown hair and brown eyes blazing. He hadn't changed much since he was five, except for height.
He made a devious face at the peephole and heard laughter behind the door as the bolts were drawn. He waited until he was in the room and the door shut before saying, "Hi, Jim."
Jim was a couple of months older than he was and taller. He was dressed like a cowboy with spiky black hair and blue eyes, the right eye being covered by bandages. People would have mistaken him for a weirdo, but Jaden had seen him take on two witches while he helped a human girl escape out a window.
He and his partner, Axel, had started the Shotguns, one of the most successful witch hunter organizations on the east coast.
"What's up, Jay? It's been a while."
"I've been busy, but now I'm bored. I came to see if you guys had anything going down."
As Jaden spoke, he looked around the room. All the usual suspects were there.
Axel: a muscular African teen with a military attitude.
Alexis: the only girl in the group with long blond hair.
Chazz: a rich kid with spiky black hair and a bad attitude.
And lastly, Zane, the oldest of the group, with shoulder-length blue hair and a stoic face.
There were also two other boys in the room that he didn't recognize.
One had spiky red hair and glasses, packing objects into a bag. The other had silver hair and sat on the sofa talking to Alexis.
"Lucky you dropped by," Jim nodded to the boy on the floor. "This is Adrian; he's new to the group. He moved to Boston after leading a group down south. He's going to head up a campaign to the warehouse district. We got a lead on something going on."
"What ya got?" Jaden asked, getting into investigator mode. "Rituals? Human sacrifice?"
"Not sure. There's been a rumor about teenage girls getting kidnapped and stashed somewhere. The problem is we don't know where or why." He gave Jaden a knowing smile. "You in?"
"Isn't anybody going to ask me first?" Adrian asked, getting up from his bag. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, fixing his stormy-gray eyes on Jaden. "I've never seen this guy before. He could be one of them."
Jim looked amused. "You wouldn't say that if you knew, Adrian. Jaden's the best."
"At what?"
"Everything. While you were at your fancy prep school, Jay was in the Chicago slums killing witches. He's been to New York, Philadelphia, LA, and even Vegas." Jim then cast Jaden a mischievous look. "Ever heard of the Hellhound?"
Adrian's eyes widened. "The Hellhound? The one that all witches fear? The one they're putting up a reward for? The one that leaves a mark?"
"Yeah, yeah," The brunette rolled his eyes at the change of tune. "I've got a rep, heard it all before."
Somehow, the 'H' he left behind had been misinterpreted as Hellhound instead of Hero. Either way, Jaden didn't correct it.
Jim laughed. "Not surprisingly, he's modest about it."
Jaden gave him a look for that.
Adrian looked at him for a moment before making a decision. "Fine, he's in, but I call the shots."
"It's your show," Jaden shrugged, walking into the kitchen. "You got any food around here?"
"Is that all you think about?" Chazz griped.
"No." Jaden came back out with a bag of chips in his hands.
Chazz face palmed after that.
"Jaden, come meet the other newbie," Alexis waved him over to the other new kid. "This is Aster; he joined our group a few weeks ago. He's kind of in the same boat as you…."
Jaden frowned and looked at the silver-haired boy, who looked back at him with questioning eyes. "Mom or dad?"
"… My dad." Aster looked down at his hands. "I came home from a friend's place and found him dead. There were all these strange markings on the floor."
Jaden nodded. He sympathized with the boy. The shock of finding the one person who cared for you dead was bad enough. Finding out that witches were real and everywhere, joined together in some giant secret society, worsened it.
"Let's get going," Adrian said.
Alexis and Aster got up, and the rest of the group started heading for the door.
Outside, Adrian led them to a dark blue car with mud-caked over the license plate number, so it would be tougher to trace. "We'll drive to the warehouse; it's faster."
Jaden was relieved by this. He was used to walking the city streets at night without being detected. It took practice; doing it right is more complicated than it looks. Very useful when you're carrying around an inconcealable sword, but he wasn't sure how the others would manage, especially Aster.
The drive was silent primarily except for Jim's voice murmuring directions to Adrian and Jaden's munching on the chips he still had. They passed through some respectable neighborhoods and areas with quaint old buildings until they got to a street where everything changed.
As if they had crossed some invisible boundary, the streets were lined with wet trash, and the fences were topped with barbed wire. The buildings were now government housing projects, dark warehouses, and rowdy bars.
Adrian pulled into a parking lot and stopped the car away from the security lights. He led them through the knee-high dead weeds of a vacant lot to a silent and almost entirely dark street.
"This is the lookout point," He whispered as they reached a squat brick building, a part of the housing project that had been abandoned.
Following him, they zigzagged debris and loose scrap metal to get to a side door, then climbed a graffiti-covered staircase to the third floor. Their flashlights provided the only light source.
"Nice place," Aster whispered, looking around. He had obviously never been in a place like this before. "Do you think there might be other people around, other than witches?"
Alexis gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "No, it's okay."
"Yeah, it looks like even the junkies have abandoned the place," Jaden said, grimly amused.
"By the smell of it, I don't blame them," Chazz added.
"You can see the whole street from the window," Adrian said shortly. "Jim, Axel, and I were here yesterday watching the warehouse across the street. Last night we saw a guy at the end of the street who looked like a witch. You know the signs."
Aster opened his mouth to say he didn't know the signs, but Jaden was already speaking. "Did you test him?"
"We didn't want to get that close. We'll do it tonight if he shows up again."
"How do you test them?" Aster asked.
Adrian didn't answer. He and Zane had pushed aside a couple of rat-chewed mattresses and were unloading the bags they'd brought.
So, Jaden answered. "One way is to shine a light in their eyes. Usually, you can see a ring of silver around their pupils."
"There are other ways, too," Adrian added, setting the things he was unloading on the bare boards of the floor.
There were ski masks, knives and daggers, several nails in various sizes, and a hammer. Axel added a few guns to the pile.
Jaden didn't quite like the way he said that. He also didn't like the last thing Adrian pulled out of his bag.
It was a wooden device that looked like a mini stockade. Two hinged blocks of wood that fit snugly around a person's wrists and closed with a lock.
"Witch handcuffs," Adrian said proudly, seeing his look. "Made of white oak. Guaranteed to hold any freak. I brought them from down south."
"Hold them for what? And what are the little nails for? You'd never be able to kill them with those."
Adrian smiled fiercely. "Exactly."
Oh.
Jaden's heart skipped a beat, and he looked away to get control of his reaction. Now he understood what Adrian had in mind.
Torture.
"A quick death's too good for them," Adrian said, still smiling. "They deserve to suffer the way they make our people suffer. Besides, we might get some information. We need to know where they keep the girls they take and what they're doing with them."
"Adrian," Jaden spoke earnestly. "It's practically impossible to make witches talk. They're stubborn. They get angry wild like animals when they're hurt or cornered."
Adrian smirked. "I've made some talk. It depends on what you do and how long you make it last. Anyway, there's no harm in trying."
"Did you know about this?" Jaden looked at Jim.
"Jim lets me do things my way!" The new guy got defensive. "I don't have to tell him every little detail! I was a leader myself, you know!"
Still uncomfortable, Jaden looked at the others.
He saw that Aster looked just as torn as he did. Like he wanted to say something, but he knew he shouldn't.
Jim looked just as uncomfortable as Jaden, but he didn't say anything.
Alexis and Chazz both had guarded expressions, so it was hard to tell what they thought of the situation.
Though, Jaden knew Alexis. While she hated witches as much as he did, the idea of torture had never entered her mind.
Axel and Zane didn't say anything, but that was typical from what he knew of them. Both were men of few words.
Jaden felt odd, as if he saw the worst of himself in a mirror, making him feel sick and… ashamed. It left him shaken worse than he had the day this all began.
'Why do I care?' He thought, turning away.
The freaks were evil, all of them. The whole race needed to be wiped out.
Plus, Adrian's right. Why should they get a clean death when they didn't give that to their victims?
He and Aster deserve to avenge their parents.
"Unless you object or something," Adrian said heavily; Jaden could feel his eyes on him. "Unless you're some kind of witch sympathizer."
Jaden shot him the deadliest glare. "Say that again."
"Bad move," Alexis muttered.
"He got off easy," Chazz said to Aster. "I said that when we first met, the next thing I know, I have my face pressed into the floor with Jaden's knee digging into my back."
"With that story in mind, let's not have a repeat." Zane finally spoke up in a stern, giving a matching look to the boys.
"It's your show; I'm just along for the ride," Jaden said, backing down before moving over to the window.
"Good," Adrian said and returned to his work.
But the sick feeling in Jaden's stomach wouldn't go away. He almost hoped that a witch didn't show up tonight.
And that's the end of this chapter. Next time, we meet characters on the opposite side of the divide.
Like always, read, review, and stay tuned.
Also, Happy Holidays! Remember to celebrate safely.
