Simple Unicycle
Izurich
Morden Man
The four siblings stood over a warehouse along the San Maria Bay as the customary thick, rolling fog of the night flowed lazily along the ground. Lud rolled his shoulders back and forth, clearly itching for a fight only he knew was coming. The other three had come on his request, after Art had called Clara and Bach out. While the visions of his prophetic dreams still rattled in Mozart's head, his larger brother was ready to put the frog's efforts into more tangible efforts.
"So, I'm sure you're wondering why I asked you guys to come with me here," he motioned his large, bullfrog head towards the warehouse.
"Figured you wanted a family stroll along the water," Bach shrugged.
"I was just happy to get away from fixing the water purifier," Clara said absentmindedly, her eyes trained on the building. She was always thinking. She was always working out what would happen next. "Art said something about a fight. Dunno if that's such a good idea, but hey, I'll hear my brother out."
Ludwig's eyes rolled slightly, but he continued, "Yea, there's gonna be a fight alright. You guys know the Bayside Bandits?"
"Those weirdos in the wrestling masks we ran into a few weeks ago?" Art nodded. "They're a Pinebluffs gang who are moving into San Maria. Yea I remember them."
"Well they're using this warehouse to run guns into the city," Ludwig explained. "I took down one of their dealers trying to recruit and arm a bunch of guys in an alleyway the other day. He pointed me towards this building when I asked him where the guns were getting brought in. I figured we could cut the shipments off at the source and clean the city up a bit."
"Sounds like a sweet idea to me," Bach shadowboxed, throwing a few punches. "Ever since our fight with the big lizard I've been wanting to go a few rounds."
Mozart had brought the other two here without knowing Ludwig's plan. His brother wanted to funnel Art's desire for purpose into this, and for that the eldest Frog was grateful. And this was still fighting the darkness like his dream had warned of, albeit a different form of darkness. Making San Maria safer for those that lived in it was a noble goal, and one he would happily support.
"I don't see a problem with it," Mozart nodded. "A safe San Maria is as good for us as it is for the other people who live here."
"No," Clara was unmoved. "We start doing this superhero thing, and we're bound to attract more attention than we already have onto ourselves. I mean look at what happens to all the other ones across the world. They get nonstop media coverage. They get targeted by terrorists and the government more often than not. Their lives are in constant danger. We already have some of the greatest and most dangerous science minds in the world after us. Do we really want to bring down more our way?"
No one said anything for quite a while. Clara's fear was palpable. Not of fighting a group of thugs. Art knew as well as she did they would be able to do so with ease. But she was scared that she was going to lose her family by fighting. By shining the bright spotlight onto themselves, they would be putting each other in danger. He understood how she felt. They had suffered long inside of IDRG, and they had fought hard to get to this point of freedom. But he also knew that freedom meant nothing if all they did was hide from the world around them.
"Clara, I get it," he put his hand on her shoulder. "But if we wall ourselves off from the world, what good was escaping? Having our family is great, but if we spend our lives hiding in our bunker, we're wasting our freedom. We have to have a purpose, and if that purpose is being heroes in this city, so be it."
She returned Mozart's stare, almost angry that he knew exactly what she was feeling. They were close, the two of them. They had the twin-like bond of feeling what the other did, even if they were technically not related at all. She then glanced at her other two brothers, both of which were clearly ready to jump into the fray.
"Fine," she relented with a wave of her hand. "Someone needs to make sure you idiots don't get killed anyway."
"Sweet," Bach laughed.
**********
Dubai
The Jackal sat silently in a chair that was far too plush for his liking, though he found that during time's passage, the world had become more comfortable. Humanity thrived. Too-little food in his time had been replaced by too much. Few struggled to survive. It had made humanity weak. That made him smile. They were lambs ready for the slaughter. Ready to be swallowed by the unfathomable madness the waited to be released.
Still, they had done wonderful things.
The city that laid below the penthouse he now occupied sprawled like the galaxy shining in the night sky. The lights were infinite and the buildings were sleek and rose to the heavens as if they believed they could touch the cosmos itself. It showed their arrogance, their belief that their lives mattered. Still, he was impressed they tried. It was beautiful, their defiance in the face of certain death. A part of him admired them for it.
The apartment he now sat in, the most oppulent in the building he was told was called the Burj Khalifa, was fit for the king he was. From here he could not only see the city, but the world. Once he desired to rule all he surveyed, and had succeeded in doing so. But in the process he had learned of a far greater prize. Not the world. The power to reshape all the worlds.
All he had to do was destroy them all first.
"Is the apartment to your liking, grandfather?" a voice asked behindhim. He turned to find Kemsit, the young woman who had led his recovery. She was now dressed in a form-fitting black business suit instead of the ritualistic armor she had worn during his Resurrection. She was his final, worthy descendant, a fact he could scarcely believe. How had his line failed so?
Yet she seemed to be worthy of his blood. She had found him, after all. He could not say the same about any of his other progeny.
He smiled at her, "Yes, child. It is fit for a king."
"As you are," she bowed to him. "As you will be again."
He studied her. There was a confidence in her he admired, but too much of a willingness to please. She may have been ambitious, but if she deferred to him all the time she could not give good council.
"Tell me," he turned back to look over the city, "how did we come to have such power, yet not use that power to bring about the Eye's rise?"
He could feel her wince behind him. It was a question she figured was coming, but had hoped it wouldn't come up.
"After you were entombed, my ancestors wandered and looked for a new home, hunted by the Medjay the entire time," she began to tell the tale. "We offered our services as mercenaries, and attempted to regain our power wherever we went. We learned from the Greeks, Romans, and Huns, among others. But we were never able to get the foothold we needed to. After a failed attempt to infiltrate Egypt was repelled, we settled in North East Africa. And where we did happened to be rich in oil. As the years progressed, we leveraged that into Iris Energy. My great great grandfather had used the symbol of the Eye in a perverse way to promote his business, ending our true heritage in a mockery."
He had noticed that his family's company had a red eye as its sigul. But it did not have the power of the one he wore into battle. This was merely a stylized human eye, not the representation of the true god.
"In the past we decades we have diversified," she continued. "Two of our child companies, Northern Continental Electronics and Sundra Weapons Systems, helped to make us a player in the defense industry, which in turn helps arm our soldiers in preparation for the cleansing of the planet."
She had a killer instinct and the raw, fanatical drive he desired. That was good. But she still did not know his goals. Not his real goals. Only his priests in the ancient times did, and now they too were gone.
"And how did you discover our true purpose, child?" he asked, fascinated by what she would say. "How did you discover the glorious purpose of the All-Seeing Eye?"
The Jackal turned to face her, and he found a fire burning in her eyes, "It spoke to me. At least I believe it did. The great, red eye came to me in a dream. It told me I was meant for greater things. It told me about the book of our church that my father had kept hidden in his private vault. I read it and began recruiting for your church. Once I had our reavers, our harriers, I came to my father and uncle with an ultimatum. We use our vast resources to bring about you and your dream, or they die. My father refused. He died. My uncle quickly agreed. He lived."
The Jackal laughed. It was a deep, loud crack of rolling thunder that seemed to make the windows of the apratment shake. He couldn't help it. He liked the girl. He was proud of her. To kill ones own father was a grave sin for the sheep of this world. For her to do so and brag about it meant she was surely of his blood.
"And what is my mission, granddaughter?"
It was the question he was most curious of her answer.
"To remake the planet," she looked at him, unsure of why he was asking. "To bring about the world the great Eye showed you."
"It is so much more than that," he turned and put his strong hands on her shoulders. "It is not just to remake this world. It is to remake all the worlds that twirl on the beam."
"All of them, grandfather?" she looked up at him, puzzled.
"Yes, my dear. There are other worlds than these."
**********
Mozart climbed down the fire escape of the North side of the building, as the other three frogs took up position on the other sides of the warehouse. As he got closer to the door, he felt his heart pound in his chest. They had never done anything like this before. Not really. Their attack on IDRG was nothing more than a desperate attempt to save themselves. Otherwise the few times they busted some of the Bandits on the street it was a chaotic mistake.
This was them tapping into the skills that were embedded into them from birth. They knew they were supposed to be warriors. That wasn't even considering their vision from the other night. No, they were bred to be superhuman soldiers in service to the IDRG for some nefarious reason. Now they were going to use those skills for good.
He had never been so excited.
The door leading in from the fire escape opened easily, creaking only slightly at the pressure he put on it. Across the catwalks of the building he could see his siblings enter as well. He motioned down to the floor below, where the men of the Bayside Bandits were moving crates from one large truck to other, smaller vehicles. Ludwig was right, they were certainly moving a lot of merchandise into San Maria.
Most of them didn't look all that important, but two of the Bandits stood out from the rest. One was a hulking individual almost as large as Ludwig. His bare, dark-skinned arms were bare, and he merely wore a tanktop and a pair of jeans, with combat boots. He looked like he could handle himself in a fight. Next to him, a smaller, skinnier man swung his legs off one of the crates and lounged back, his hands behind his head. He wore a tatty vest and a dirty t-shirt underneath. An electric orange mowhawk sprouted from the top of his head. He didn't look like a threat, but an unpredictable energy jumped off him.
Mozart caught the eyes of his siblings, and gave a nod. The four of them dropped down to the lower level, hiding in the darkness along the side of the warehouse. Mozart slid up next to some of the stacked crates. He knew the others were probably doing the same. They all knew what they had to do. It had been baked into their brains since birth.
Suddenly, one of the Bandits turned the corner. At first, he walked right by Art. But once he did, he double-taked and his eyes went wide at the big, blue frog. Before he could yell and alert the others, Mozart snapped out with his nad, delivering a dose of his paralyzing poison. The man crumpled towards the floor, but Art made sure to catch him before the sound alerted the rest of the men.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't matter. He heard a crash from where Bach had dropped down.
"Sanchez!?" the big man in the tank top yelled that way.
"Yea, man!?" Bach responded, putting on a ridiculous ice.
"Well, that's weird," the one with the mowhawk chuckled. "Sounds like you bumped your head and learned English, Sanchez!"
"Oh..uhh..donde esta la biblioteca!?" Bach responded. Mozart covered his face with his palm.
"Kill whoever the hell that is," the big guy ordered.
Art couldn't wait around any longer. Not after he heard the sound of guns cocking. He sprung off his powerful legs and flew through the air, landing in the center of all the Bandits. He rolled, grabbed the closest one by the shoulders, and tossed him into another. The two of them slammed through a crate, spilling its contents and knocking the two of them out. He heard others moving behind him, and a giant crash. He turned to see Lud smash through a tower of crates, causing them to topple down to the floor, creating a blizzard of splinters. Bach and Clara came next, trying to clean up the remaining Bandits.
"Get the merch out of here!" Mowhawk yelled to the men. Those that were still conscious ran for the trucks and sped off. Art tried to cut off the Mowhawk and the Big Guy, but before he could, Mowhawk lobbed a fiery projectile into the crates still in the warehouse. It exploded into a blaze, which quickly started to engulf the entire warehouse.
"Come on!" Lud yelled at Art. "We can still catch them!"
"No, we have to get everyone who's in here out!" he yelled back and picked up two of the Bandits and headed towards the exit. Lud gave him an angry look, but did the same.
Before long, the Bandits left behind were tied up and left for the authorities. Meanwhile, the Frogs headed back towards the hills.
"What the hell was that?" Ludwig spun Mozart around with a sneer. "We could have caught up with the ringleaders."
"We weren't going to leave people to burn to death," Art shook his head.
"They were criminals, Art," Clara added in.
"Who were laying unconscious," he shot back. "I'm not afraid to kill someone who deserves it. But I'm going to do that face to face. I'm not going to leave a defenseless person burn to death."
The four of them stood in silence, allowing the words to sink in. Art meant every word he said. He had no issue killing a human that posed a threat to an innocent or one of his siblings. But he would do it with honor. That much he was certain of.
Ludwig nodded and looked at the ground, "You're right. We're not murderers. Not in cold blood."
Mozart put his hand on his brother's shoulder, "We'll find them, and take them off the street. I promise."
