The day progressed and preparations had come to an end. Time had steadily drifted to late in the afternoon, and throughout the city, vendors were beginning to pack up, most having sold out of their promotional goods. A few would stay open, hoping to get a bit more business once the celebrations ended. Prosper’s city square was packed full of excited citizens. A few thousand more than expected had arrived, but the events committee was able to accommodate the extra attendees.
Near the back of the crowd, on a raised platform, were several news cameras and their operators. The cameras had just started rolling, and the screens around the square began to light up with images of the event. In front of one of the cameras, a newswoman was testing the levels of her mic before beginning to speak, addressing anyone who was watching.
“Good evening everyone! This is Corein Gedring from Prosper City News, bringing you live coverage of this year’s New Year’s Celebration. This year is special because it’s also the ten year anniversary of the founding of the Central Peace, which was made official right here in this square. As you can see behind me, we have a great turnout at this year’s celebration, full of excited citizens waiting for it to begin.”
The cameras did a sweep of the crowd while cheers erupted throughout. After the noise settled, Gedring continued, “Unfortunately, the whereabouts of my co-anchor are still unknown, so I will be going it alone this year, but I will do my best so that everyone at home watching doesn’t miss any coverage of the exciting events that are planned for tonight. The time is currently [680] so we’re about twenty minutes out. Right now, I have the mayor here with me to help lead us into it.”
Gedring lifted her hand and the man next to her shook it in response as he smiled towards the camera. “Ladies and Gentlemen, for anyone who doesn’t know, this is Prosper’s mayor, Mr. Lavir Kagory. Mr. Kagory has been mayor for the past eleven years and has helped evolve this city into the great place it has become.” She turned her attention to the man and inquired, “Sir, I know you’re planning on giving your official speech later this evening, but would you mind giving us a little preview?”
Kagory looked at her with a smile and said, “I would be happy to,” before turning towards the camera. “I don’t want to give too much away, so I would like to take this moment to say thank you; Thank you to all the citizens of this wonderful city. Without your resilience and dedication we would not have been able to make Prosper shine as the beacon of hope for the future. I would also like to thank the Central Peace, without their efforts, this dream would have taken so much longer to accomplish. Finally, I would like to thank—”
The mayor’s speech was cut off by an extremely loud creak from a nearby rooftop which was then followed by a sudden crash, screams from the crowd, and then silence.
Prosper was constantly under development, so it was not strange for construction cranes to be seen regularly around the city. In particular, there was a crane devoted solely to the central square. Development there had ceased for the time being, but there was constant need for maintenance on the large broadcast screens that encircled it, so the crane had become a permanent addition to one of the rooftops.
The bulky equipment that had been pointing straight up towards the sky came crashing down. It was now sticking out from the roof, laying horizontally aloft the main stage of the event. All eyes and cameras were now focused on the two figures walking out onto it above the crowd. It was a little hard to see from the light of the setting sun, so a spotlight was shone on them. It was Drim and Phon, known to the world as The Slayer and The Vixen.
Phon walked out first. She was carrying a large speaker that she had stolen during the event preparations and had a mic pinned to her top. Drim followed behind, and once they reached the area directly above center stage, they stopped and looked out towards the crowd. The Vixen put down the speaker and began tapping on her mic. After she got feedback, she raised her arms in a grand gesture and began to speak in a roaring voice.
“Good evening, Prosper! And to everyone watching, Happy New Years and CP Anniversary to you all. I know you must find this a little surprising. After all, we are not on the official list of tonight’s planned events, but don’t worry. You can consider us tonight’s pre-celebration entertainment!”
Phon lowered her arms before continuing. “I’m sure most of you have a good idea of who we are. I know I’m the more famous one, but I bet a few of you have heard the rumors of the cloaked gentleman next to me. I bet you all must be wondering what we are doing together; the world’s greatest bounty hunter, and the world’s greatest monster slayer—the two unsung heroes who have been keeping you safe from the scary things in the world: The Silent Slayer and The Vivacious Vixen.”
Phon choked on that last sentence a little and raised a finger in annoyance. “Before we go on, I just want to address something. It’s the names! We don’t come up with them ourselves, so it’s one of you out there who did this! The names do describe us pretty well, I’ll give you that, but what’s with the obsessive abuse of alliteration, huh?! I once took a contract for someone named the ‘Commanding Commodore’. Normally, he’d be below my paygrade, but I went after him just so the world could be rid of that ridiculous name.”
Phon stared off a little, shaking her finger in irritation at the memory, before returning her masked gaze towards the crowd. “Sorry sorry, sometimes I get a little off track. Anyways, why we’re together—that’s simple. It’s because he’s my precious little brother!” While saying that she leaned over to Drim and rubbed her cheek against his hood as she hummed the last line to a playful tune.
Returning to a more serious demeanor, the woman continued. “So what could we possibly want to talk to you about?” She sat down, dangling her feet off the edge of the crane, and began to kick them like a little child. “Well, we just want to have a little chat about ‘Fiends’!”
“I’m sure you all have heard the rumors, about those weird people with red eyes and a red tattoo somewhere on their body, about how they seem just a bit stronger than a normal human. Some of you over the past years may have been wondering why your governments or the Central Peace has never done anything about them, or even officially acknowledged their existence.”
“While I’m sure most of you have heard of them, I doubt many of you have actually ever seen one. That is because they have been doing something about it. They’ve been doing their very best to contain any incidents regarding ‘Fiends’ so that they can study and learn about them before the information is brought to the public. But I will say it right now, in front of all of you, and to the whole world: Fiends. Are. Real.”
A few gasps and murmurs could be heard from the crowd, quickly followed by silence so they could hear what Phon would say next. “I would like to tell you all a little bit about Fiends now, if that’s alright. They are not some alien species living among us. No, every Fiend was once a completely normal human. But that is not to say that Fiends are normal. After all, each and every Fiend is a murderer.”
The noises from the crowd grew this time, but The Vixen raised her arms as if to silence them before continuing. “That’s right, all it takes for someone to become a Fiend is to kill another human. Now you must be thinking, why should those who kill be rewarded with power? But for someone to become a Fiend, the human they kill must have specific qualities. That person must be completely evil, absolute scum, someone who is an indisputably negative presence in the world.”
“So, when someone kills another with these special qualities, whether it be on purpose, in self defense, or an accident, they will become a Fiend. It happens almost instantly afterwards too. The killer’s eyes become the color of blood, and they will be branded with a red mark somewhere on their body. Then from that day forward, that Fiend’s physical abilities will overcome that of a normal human—a sort of thank you, I suppose, for helping make the world a better place.”
“I’m sure many of you are guessing that we are Fiends.” As she said this, Phon stood back, stretched as she did a little twirl, then ended with leaning on Drim. “The rumors about The Slayer make that idea invalid, though. After all, every one of them has stated that he has green eyes.” Almost on cue, Drim’s eyes began to glow brightly underneath his hood, enough so that everyone in the area could see them.
After a few seconds, the glow faded. Phon stopped leaning and pressed a hand against her mask. “None of you have actually seen my eyes, but I assure you that they are not red. You will see the color for yourselves soon enough. So no, we are not Fiends. Well, as you know them anyways.”
“It turns out that there is more than one kind of Fiend. We are the actual Fiends. Compared to the ones you know… well the truth is we don’t compare. We are several times stronger than the Fiends that you all have been so afraid of. They could be considered much… lesser… versions of us.” Phon moved her hand towards her chest, and pushed her fingers into it as she addressed the crowd. “So from now on, please address us as Fiends and the ones with the red eyes as ‘Lesser Fiends’.”
“There is one more thing, though, that separates us, sets us real Fiends far above the rabble. Each of us has a unique ability. I guess the most recognizable way to put it would be a superpower like those from tales of heroes.” More murmurs spread through the crowd, most sounding in disbelief, though a few held clear intrigue. Phon spoke again, raising her voice a bit to overshadow the crowd. “I know that’s hard to believe, but we will give you just a small demonstration!”
After waiting a few seconds to make sure that everyone’s attention was back on them, Phon looked towards Drim and nodded. The young man lifted his arm, and several long vines of black thorns erupted from the glow around his wrist. The plants shot out above the crowd, endlessly flowing from him, all the way to the back platform. They wrapped around the mayor, and dragged him back to the crane where the two stood, faster than most of the citizens below could process what had happened. The vines deposited him between the pair. Then most of the plants returned to Drim, but a few remained to keep the mayor bound to the spot.
Phon leaned down to the mayor, who was forced to squat because of his fauna restraints. “Hello Mr. Kagory,” The Vixen greeted him with friendly reverence, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The mayor didn’t respond, his eyes were darting around, clearly in shock. After a few seconds of silence, the young woman asked, “So, what did you think of my brother’s ability? Pretty neat, huh?” This time the mayor muttered a few noises but nothing coherent.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
The uninvited host straightened up and looked back towards the crowd. “Well, that’s fine if you don’t want to talk Mr. Mayor, I’ll just tell everyone here a little tale!” There had been a lot of commotion from the crowd during this, unsure if this was part of the show or whether they should be panicking, but at those words from The Vixen, they settled back down.
“A few days ago, my brother was walking around the streets of the city’s outskirts. There he found a woman crying, trying to get any bystander to stop and talk to her. Any that she did manage to get to listen, quickly brushed her aside after listening to her ramblings. Turns out, she was saying something very interesting. She claimed that her husband and child had been killed a week ago, in a hit and run, and that you, Mr. Mayor, were the one who did it.”
A few gasps of disbelief rang from below as Phon pressed on. “Now that is quite the bold claim, not one someone would easily believe, especially from someone in hysterics. However, this piqued my brother’s interest, so he did a little digging, and what he found was oh so interesting.” The mayor, finally listening to Phon’s words, began to sweat profusely.
“It turns out that the night in question, you had just gotten off from a long and stressful meeting. Apparently, it is well known among your staff that you tend to have a bit too much to drink when you want to alleviate such stress. The following morning, the alcohol in your office was replaced by your secretary as is her task whenever she finds an empty bottle.”
“This, however, isn’t enough evidence on its own, but also the next morning, your car was taken in for repairs. The services on the receipt for the maintenance were listed as repairing a large dent in the front of the car, and cleaning off large red stains. This alone is enough to make you, or whoever was driving your car that night, a suspect.”
“But you didn’t just stop at the manslaughter, did you? You tried your hardest to cover it up. After all, if the respected mayor of the greatest city was proven to be a killer, both he and the city could suffer a serious blow. It seems that you paid off a few members of the local police force to destroy the report and erase the security footage of the incident.”
“I guess you just wanted to get away from it all, but you should have double checked. Turns out that the carbon copy of the report didn’t quite make it all the way to the shredder, and my brother was able to get the footage restored—the footage that clearly shows you hitting a man and child with your car.”
Phon pulled out her phone and pressed a few buttons on it. Behind the crane, on the largest screen of the venue, the mentioned security footage began to play. It looped a few times before the power to the screen was cut. The crowd gasped and screamed a few times but was silent now. Fortunately, the footage was at such an angle that nothing too traumatizing was broadcasted for any sensitive eyes watching, but the evidence was undeniable
The Vixen leaned back down to the mayor, her mask’s fake eyes staring directly into his. “And to top it all off, you sent money to the widow, with the condition that she stayed silent, but when she spoke to my brother that day, she said she didn’t want money. In fact, she gave every last cent of it to him, in the promise that he would see that justice is served.” Phon stood back up, uttering coldly, “And serve it we shall.”
In response to that declaration, the mayor opened his mouth wide, as if to finally say something in his defense, but the top layer of vines binding him crawled up to his face and gagged him. Drim shot out another vine from his wrist, one end wrapped around the crane, and the other around Kagory’s neck. Then without further warning Phon kicked him off the crane.
As the crowd screamed, the mayor of Prosper City was hanged to death.
Many of those below bolted towards the edge of the square, but most were trapped by the sheer mass of people, with several completely immobile from shock. Police who were just outside, began to rush towards the chaos. Just before they reached it, walls of thorns shot out from the ground, blocking every entrance and exit. The news team had been ordered to kill the feed, but Gedring had demanded that they not stop filming no matter what.
After a few minutes of panic, and realizing that the two on the crane weren’t going to do anything immediately to them, the crowd began to settle a bit. Once all eyes had returned to them, both siblings bowed as the woman bellowed, “I hope you all have enjoyed our show so far, but it isn’t over just yet!”
They stood back up, and then The Vixen announced, “We’ll do just a bit of cleaning up so that we can continue with your focused attention.” The thorned vines that the mayor’s body dangled from lifted him back up towards the crane. They made it about halfway before a few of them shot out towards the nearby rooftop and then pulled the corpse onto the roof, out of sight of the fidgeting crowd below.
“Now that we’ve shown you a bit of our power, we would like to take a moment to address the other Fiends out there who might be watching. Yes, there are more than just the two of us.” Phon, who had been mostly looking at the crowd this whole time, now faced directly at one of the cameras. The operator took this as a hint to zoom in on her masked face.
“To all you Fiends and Lessers out there who have hid away and tried to live normal lives, I encourage you to step out and show your true selves to the world. No matter how hard you try, you can’t go back to being the regular human that you once were. In fact, it is probably best to not think of yourself as a human at all anymore. You are a Fiend, that is the name the world has given you. Embrace it!”
Phon then returned her attention to the flock of corralled humans below them. “I’m sure a few of you are wondering, ‘How could these two possibly know this much about Fiends? Even if they are ones, no real information has been widespread about them.’ Well the answer is simple, we are the very first ones ever created!” She pointed to Drim then back at herself. “Patient zero, patient also zero.”
“Now I’m sure most of you are wondering who it was that we killed. They must have been someone seriously evil in order to create the first Fiends. Well, if you think about it hard enough, there’s only one clear solution. The very first rumor of a Fiend spread a little less than twelve years ago, about two weeks after the Cosmic Boon. That rumor was not about us, and like I said, we were the first.”
“I’m sure by now only one possibility could be filling your minds, but it couldn’t possibly be them. It's common knowledge they were killed in a house fire, right? ...Wrong! It was not some act of divine providence that killed those two bastards, we did. That’s right, we killed Eleen and Relyk Drazah!”
Murmurs surged through the crowd faster than ever before. Most seemed to be debating whether or not those claims could possibly be true, while others decried the presenter as delusional. “I know this must be pretty hard to believe, but we do have a tiny bit of evidence to substantiate our claim.” From his cloak, Drim pulled out a female cut military jacket and wrapped it around Phon’s shoulders. On the left side were dozens of completely unique medals that would be near impossible to replicate, and on the right, the name ‘Drazah’ was stitched into the chest.
“Yes, this is indeed Eleen Drazah’s jacket. I’m sure most of you know it well, she was always seen wearing it in those gaudy statues of her. We took it from her that night after we killed them. I’m sure a few experts will take a look at this broadcast’s footage to judge its authenticity for themselves. However, I know that just seeing it is enough for some of you, those memories of fear swirling in your mind just from one glance.”
“So yes, we did kill them. We killed the two demons who plagued the world and put an end to their tyranny, along with their quest for global subjugation. If anyone is curious, I killed Relyk, and The Slayer killed Eleen... Oh, and you’re welcome by the way.”
The crowd had stopped talking entirely—the whole city silent as if frozen in time. It couldn’t be helped. The truth must have been shocking, that there were two people out there who were solely responsible for the new peace flourishing in the world. The audience’s faces all changed in unison, with one unanswered burning question written on them. ‘Who?’
“We won’t keep you in suspense much longer. I’m sure what everyone wants to know now is Who, We, Are!” Phon crooned as she once again raised her arms towards the sky. “I’m guessing most of you are thinking that we must have been someone intimate with them, to have been able to get close enough to kill them without anyone noticing. I guess you could say, we are the two who were the closest to them in the whole world. So without further ado…”
First, Phon raised her hat, letting her white hair flow down, and Drim pulled down the cloth that covered his face. Simultaneously, the man pulled down his hood, while his sister removed her mask, properly showing their identities for the first time in twelve years. The Vixen stared directly into the camera with her now visible eyes and decreed, “We are Drim and Phon Drazah! The only two children of Eleen and Relyk Drazah! Rightful heirs to the Drazah Empire, and to the whole world!”
Drim didn’t really take after his father much, except for the stern expression he now wore. However, Phon was the spitting image of her mother. The height, build, and face were almost exact copies. With her white hair, and the jacket draped around her, she looked like a ghost of Eleen that had come back to haunt the world. To seal the deal, she struck the same cross-armed pose her mother bore in every statue
A few members of the crowd screamed in shock. The flesh and blood descendants of the two most hated and feared people in all of history were now standing before them. Those standing witness to their return undoubtedly wished that the two before them were literally anyone else, and they grew restless as panic ensued. A few tried to claw at the vines, wanting to get as far away from there as possible.
“QUIET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” a voice boomed. It wasn’t Phon this time. It was Drim, saying the first public word since he had been given the title ‘The Silent Slayer’. The shout wasn’t exactly deep in tone, but it pierced through the crowd as if a higher being was speaking, and entirely without the aid of the speaker Phon had been using.
The noise that reverberated through the area was one that seemed to demand attention and respect, and it got just that. The last known person to speak in such a way was Eleen, as she gave her speeches that inspired or scared people into following her. The crowd had stopped moving entirely, with all eyes pointing directly at Drim, doing their best not to get sucked into gazing directly at his hair.
“Thank you, Drim,” Phon said sincerely as she gave him a little nod before looking back down at the crowd. She then began speaking to them as if she was an adult addressing a child. “Now then, you all need to calm down. We aren’t our parents. We were the ones who killed them after all, and we aren’t interested in taking over your world, a human world. After all, we are not humans anymore.”
“We are Fiends, the very first, and quite likely the reason other Fiends exist. We will do our best to find our place in this world, and do things humans can only dream of. However, we’re not entirely selfish, as you can see with the work we’ve done to protect your society, work only Fiends like us can provide, and work that blurs the moral line that you humans walk.”
“Now that we have revealed ourselves, that work does not have to come to an end. Just because most people on this planet probably want to see us dead, it doesn’t mean that we can’t be of use.” Phon reattached her mask in order to free her hands, reached into both of her skirt pockets, and pulled out two large stacks of business cards.
“We are Fiends, and we’re… For Hire!” With that, The Vixen threw both stacks of cards into the air which rained down into the crowd below them. On the front of the card was a logo, and beneath it read ‘Fiends For Hire’. On the back was printed: ‘For the right price, we will do almost anything.’ Beneath that was a phone number and a website address.
As a few members of the crowd bent down to pick up the cards, the walls of thorns that had sealed off the area sunk into a green glow beneath them. The onlookers returned their sights from the falling cards to the pair still up on the crane. They looked just in time to see Phon press the button on the left side of her mask. She took one last glance at the audience and yelled, “Oh, and for more information, be sure to tune into Prosper City News tomorrow at [500]! It will be very enlightening.” Then the two vanished completely.
Discord, , and Amazon Release (Pending), can be found on the Fiends For Hire .
Getting powers aside, could you kill someone if it only led to positive changes in the world?
