- Target Acquired

"Shadowform."

As she returned to the chapel, she morphed her body and scaled the side of the building before returning to her perch on a West-facing beam. Running her left hand over right hand towards her left, she summoned a bird of shadows using her "puppet," an ability she had learned to utilise in her time as a shadowstrider.

The creature appeared in the open palm of her right hand. With her free hand, she covered the creature's head and pushed her memories into it, forming a message regarding the conversation she had overheard.

Raising her right hand, she released the bird which quickly disappeared from sight around the tower to travel East, towards the outpost where Garnell was stationed.

With the message sent, she focused her eyes back on the street she had just come from, scanning the area for any sign of trouble.

'Two,' she thought to herself.

If there was one place she would find any information, then it would be behind the door hidden on the balcony. Unfortunately, she would have to wait for the bar to close.

'Well, there's no point in just waiting around for it to close.'

Her thoughts turned to the man who had attended the meeting there. Despite her mind telling her she was wrong, she thought she had recognised him from somewhere.

"Well, it's a lead," she said as she stood. Balancing on one leg, she gracefully spun and fell backwards off the beam.

As she fell, she transformed her body and dove into the building, dancing between shadows until she reached the rooftops opposite the chapel. Detecting the shadow rat some distance west of her, she swiftly ran across the city's skyline until the terrace of buildings ended.

Without hesitation she leapt off the roof, transforming to shadow in midair.

Transforming back as she reached the ground, she hastily made her way through the crowd of people between the two districts.

As she neared one of the streets of the production district she noticed that the puppet had stopped moving. Slightly worried, she sped up as she travelled down the street.

The infrastructure of the buildings was different here, giving the area a vastly different feel to the consumer district despite them being separated by only a few hundred metres.

Large chimneys towered over the area, spewing dark ash and clouds above the city. The number of streets was fewer, due to the increased size of the buildings. The fronts of buildings were closed off to the public, keeping secret the events that would transpire inside.

The streets themselves were also different. Pedestrians were forced to a narrow walkway in the centre of the street, giving way to a large array of vehicles whose purpose was to transport the products being created in the secretive buildings. Underfoot, the street was gridded rather than paved, giving both vision into and an airborne passage out of the forges that lay underground.

The clangs could be heard from the street, reverberating around as a side effect of the street's layout. The smouldering heat rose from beneath, slowly evicting any people who didn't belong. Glancing down, Tess saw huge amounts of orange, presenting an image to her like that of hell itself.

As she drew level with the building that her puppet had entered she disappeared from view, transforming her being into one of shadow. In her shadow form she was able to easily bypass the doorway and gain entry to the building, before returning to a humanoid form.

She immediately crouched down, reversing the hand motion to recall the shadow. She was at the top of a long, metallic staircase.

Below her lay a large room.

Light fell in through windows in the ceiling, illuminating the room. Two long benches ran parallel to each other along the floor. Components of an unidentifiable item lay in various stages of assembly along the length of the benches. Stood alongside the bench working on the item was a group of young people, with an age range of about a decade. They looked fatigued, as though they had repeated this task for a long time without end.

'They're still working?'

Guards stood on balconies that ran along the length of the building in a similar fashion to the benches, their focus firmly fixated on the workers below them.

'Does this syndicate deal in slavery?'

Opposite her at the other end of the building stood an office, overlooking the work floor similar to how she was.

Inside she saw the young man from the bar along with his companions. The five of them were stood facing the window, and were engaged in conversation with another group that looked like they wore the same attire as the companions. Judging from visual cues in the conversation, the man was the boss of all others in the room, and he was giving them orders.

'It must be something to do with the meeting at the bar,' Tess thought.

One of the men, directed by the leader, suddenly stood and left the office. He walked down to the work floor before demanding attention from the workers through the use of a loud spell, channelling the air inside the building to create a small sonic boom.

"Listen up, maggots!" he shouted as he began prowling down the space between the two workbenches. He drew a long cane and ran it through his hands as he walked. Those who came into close contact with him visibly recoiled due to an instinct learned through fear, drawing mocking laughs from the guards above.

"Change of plan! We're producing something new here, so throw away whatever it is you're working on now!"

His declaration caused a reaction in the workers, as a storm of confused murmurs erupted around the building. The murmurs were swiftly silenced, as the guards acted fast to bark threats down to them.

One of the workers nearest to him, a boy who looked no older than sixteen, had a more severe reaction to the news.

"Huh?! First you threaten us and abuse us because we hadn't got our supply chain set up, and now we finally have you want us to change?! This is..." his voice trailed off as he realised he had massively overstepped, and he quickly retreated back to the bench.

"You little shit!" the man yelled. Reaching out and grasping a chunk of the boy's long, messy hair, he yanked him away into the centre of the hall, throwing him onto the floor.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?!" he yelled as he kicked the boy onto his front. He then began repeatedly kicking the boy in the stomach. He slammed his foot into the boy's face, breaking his nose, before crouching down beside him and grabbing his hair once more and lifting his head up.

"You're nothing. A maggot. Vermin. If it wasn't for us you would have died years ago. Show me respect," he quietly spoke to the boy. He hit the boy's head against the floor before taking the cane into his grip.

Remaining crouched down, he began striking downwards with the cane, lashing the boy in a variety of locations.

Once satisfied with his punishment, he signalled the guards to take the boy away as he stood.

"Any more of you worthless runts have a problem with that?!" he shouted. A sick grin spread across his face, taking pleasure in the pain and terror he caused.

"Good," he said, taking the silence he received as an answer. "Now get this shit out of here. You'll have your new instructions soon."

The guards dragged the boy's limp body away through a door hidden under the office. Despite the distance Tess noticed his eyes, eyes that stayed open despite consciousness being a far cry from the state the boy was in.

Tess felt like she had been struck in the gut. Having seen enough, she returned to shadow form and left the building.

She staggered down the street back towards the consumer district, the brutality she had just witnessed physically affecting her.

People who walked past paid her no attention or visibly steered clear of her, assuming her to be just another of the horde of drunks, vagrants and criminals that plagued the streets on a nightly basis.

After walking for some time, she abruptly stopped and pushed herself against one of the long walls that encased the street.

"I'm pathetic," she muttered. "I have to go back, I have to do something. I HAVE to. Otherwise, how can I ever claim to fight to protect him, if I can't learn to protect anyone?"

She shook her head to stop herself from thinking of her brother as she turned and began moving back towards the building.

That man, whoever he was, seemed crucial to the plans of the syndicate. His death should at least delay their plans, meaning that she could save those people while carrying out her mission.

She increased her pace towards the workshop, her resolve bolstered and her commitment unshaking in her purpose. A small wave of nerves tried to rise in her stomach, but they were quickly beaten down by her soaring confidence.