Prologue, Part 3.

Planet Mortera

Spix Spokes Inn

Sometime between midnight and early morning.

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Markyos and Aiden had been on many adventured together, and each could recall that this was one of the biggies. They knew that they couldn’t risk a chance at messing things up, not this time. Even though the mission was so critical though, both of them had done missions like these for a living. Why think of failure when you’ve never? Well, neverminding that, there was always a chance of failure, and they couldn’t take the winning streak for granted.

Both of them adjusted their coats and sat down in large wooden chairs watching over the chromium table that Armistes can summoned to the room. Armistes gently sat himself down, adjusting his rattling chains to the side so that they wouldn’t annoy anyone while he was talking. The Arch Demon began to speak.

“I have a mission for each of you, including your apprentice, Markyos.” Armistes began, with a smug smile on his face as he looked at the crimson hybrid from across the table. Nero, who was adjusting his beanie hat, started to pay attention.

“If you’ve already planned this out, Sir, why did you call us for a discussion?” Aiden stated, shifting a bit in his seat as Markyos nodded with him in an agreement.

“Because, I’m not sure who’s better at what, which is why I’m going to throw these missions down on the table and see what you do with them.” Armestis responded, stroking his bangs out of his eyes as he was speaking. “Does that answer your question?”

Aiden nodded. Armestis then began to lay out the mission, at first taking a small SIM card, and inserting it into a small side slot inside the chromium table. This was more then an ordinary table. It was a GPS holographic table. Instantly, the planet of Mortera was projected onto the table, in a holographic format, with several points along the blue hologram lit up with a golden hue. This table was designed for mission briefing, and if you placed the SIM card for it into a computer flash drive, you could highlight certain points and areas that are ‘key’ points. It was a handy tool patented by the council.

“Now here we go, this is what I’ve laid out on how to bring that Corporation to justice.” Armestis stated firmly in his ‘briefing voice’. There were three areas lit up. One was lit up along a major freeway between two cities; Hellsinguard, and Scorpio, a rather large port city near one of the oceans. Another was lit up around the polar ice caps, not along the top but just over the Arctic Circle, on a small island.  The third, and final one, was right in the middle of Hellsinguard, the Zinc Corporation’s headquarters, based there. Armestis began to explain, first pointing to the yellow spot on the freeway. When he made contact to it with his finger, it zoomed in on the freeway, showing live holograms of cars passing by as it was happening right this instant.

“Tomorrow, a truck will be shipping between Scorpio, and Hellsinguard. This truck had picked up supplies from the Corporation by ship, from another port way away, that’s been ported by ship to Heaven. Whatever these guys are carrying, chances are that the material inside will lead to some evidence of treason, because the truck had claimed to be importing steel, but based on the weight of the thing I highly doubt it’s metal.”

“What do you think it is?” Aiden said, quite curious of the whole situation.

“I believe it to be paper.” Armestis suggested. “If we can intercept their course and be able to get a peek, we’ll find out now won’t we?”

Aiden nodded and stopped talking. Armestis zoomed out on the map again, showing the entirety of Mortera once more. Armestis then almost immediately pointed at the other highlighted hue, and it zoomed in to the Corporative Executive Building of Zinc Corporation in Hellsinguard, a mammoth sized proportion of a building, standing over 100 stories tall, in an exotic Angellic design. “This is, of course, the Executive Building located right here… we will send one of you inside through the trucks that security guards arrive in in-between shifts. Don’t kill those guys, they don’t know what they are protecting… just get up to the top floor, and see what you can find. I will provide you with a computer disc that will instantly bypass all security. It’s illegal as hell, but it will work.” Armestis firmly stated, eyeing the three, which nodded with understanding. “Now, it has to be one of you, Markyos and Aiden, because this building will be a hard thing to tackle. If security gets onto your ass, the council cannot bust you out, we will damn you in court to excuse us from this.”

“Understood, Armestis, I believe I can handle it.” Aiden said coolly, flicking his shining hair backwards to reveal his determined emerald green eyes. “I was always the quieter one. I’m good at sneaking in. I won’t let you down.”

Armestis sniffed the air harshly to clear his nose, slowly nodding in agreement with Aiden’s statement. “Alright… just one last thing to take care of then… this little island here.”

After zooming out, once again he pushed the yellow hue on the map, zooming into the place along the Arctic Circle. What was odd about it was apparent when he zoomed in. There was a castle like structure covering almost the whole damn thing. Everyone could tell even from the hologram, that it was very much well defended.

“Alright, this one is going to be complicated…” Armestis noted, having already studied the map. “The Company’s founder has decided to host a party to all of the wealthy Angels on Mortera… as unusual as it sounds. We need someone to infiltrate this party and spy on the meeting he is planning with his top associates… “

“I’ll take that one.” Markyos said with a flick of the wrist. “I want to know who this founder guy is.  Besides, always wanted to go to an angelic party.” He said jokingly, causing Aiden to sake his head with a smirk.

“So that leaves Nero to handle the highway…” Armestis assumed, eyeing the crimson hybrid that has been watching all this time. “You think your up for it, kid?”

“You can count on me…” The hybrid comfirmed, giving him an ‘ok’ sign with his fingers.

“Good… then I believe we know what to do now.” Armestis said in a tone that basically stated ‘if you have questions, ask them now.’ No one had any questions. “Good, good… I will give you tonight to rest and prepare yourselves. Good luck gentlemen. I will keep myself in touch and be your briefer. Until then, good day.” Armestis slowly sat up with all of his chains, him and the table slowly fading into the wind. That left the three of them as Markyos and Aiden slowly stood up and looked at each other with certainly.

“Do you think that your apprentice can handle the mission?” Aiden questioned, just wanting to make sure.

“I have faith in him, after all, I have trained him, my friend.” Markyos rested assured, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Remember those phrases? High and low I go, weapons for survival and not for show, brains not for waste, but to get me to and fro, and oh, between the grove I have round the road to go.”

“Yes, I remember those school poems…” Aiden said with a short laugh. “But what of them? How can you apply that to Nero?”

“The kid knows what he’s doing, Aiden. I wouldn’t assign him this if I didn’t know he had it in him… besides, it’s the simplest of the three missions. He will be fine. Pay attention to what you have to do, friend. This is merely just another day; remember… we’ll make it through.”

“Your right, I believe… “ Aiden paused to think about it, and then nodded in approval. “Yes, perhaps I am overreacting.”

“You are.” Nero assured, with a smirk, placing his skiing hat tightly upon his head once more, flicking his ruby stud earrings. “You forget one of my hobbies associates with cars.”





Markyos was gently cleaning himself in the shower before bed. For some reason, he needed to be clean before climbing inside. Perhaps it helped him to be at peace with himself. Markyos had been through a lot in this life, and this little mission? It was barely a spec of dust in the long and winding road of his life. He had learned not to take such important tasks as the end of the world, for he had been through far too many to even be nervous before the entire ordeal. That was Mark, stability, peace with oneself. He had lived for it all his life, and had finally started to cope with it.

He could sense a presence that was at the bathroom door. It was Aiden. The demon had dressed himself into his nightclothes, a midnight blue bathrobe, with a mystical tome of the moonlight shadow, with the moon itself, and a few stars etched in it too. Aiden had a taste for mystical art. He brushed aside his smooth chest fur and leaned against the door. “Mark… I don’t know about this one.”

“… What’s the matter?” Mark spoke from the other room, not bothering to open his eyes or change the tone of his voice, washing his quills off.

“It’s just… it’s not like the other missions where I think about coming back home…” Aiden admitted, tilting his head a bit to try to conjure an explanation for his thoughts. “It’s like I’m uncertain… something is… going to happen or something else.”

Markyos shut off the shower and stepped out, placing a towel on his forehead and drying himself off before slipping into his own bathrobe, a black bathrobe with a dragon etched into it with golden threads, along with his name. Upon opening the door, he faced Aiden with warmhearted eyes. “If anything happens… you call me… ok… we’ll jus turn through this like we’ve run through a thousand other things… this isn’t the first time you’ve had a bad feeling.”

“No… I guess not.” Aiden admitted, sliding into the bathroom area to take his own shower. “I’ll see you in the morning… before we leave.”

“See you in the morning then…” Markyos stated as the door was closing. He patted his dry scalp a couple of more times before stepping out of the porch to his room, to the gigantic city of Hellsinguard below. He gently looked up at the moon before muttering a quick prayer to Mephio, gently gliding his fingers in blessing and looking back down upon the city. “Mephio… protect my people… protect me. That’s all I ask.”

He turned off the gas lantern on the porch, and walked back in, as a gentle breeze slowly gathered up upon the porch, and the faint sound of footsteps were heard, when no one could hear them, appearing to be a slow, rather sad pace, and then, it all faded away.

END OF PART 3

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