Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“In three, two, one,” the rogue says.

All at once, the Foxhounds kick in the doors of the abandoned factory. Their targets are inside; they’ve been assured. The Director wouldn’t lead them astray. They could trust her. Everything they're looking for will be within these four walls.

This assignment doesn't need to be quiet—there's no one around for miles—it needs to be fast. Rogue parties are beginning to fear the Foxhounds. They will no longer be as easily caught off guard. But everyone needs to sleep eventually, and there’s no better time to slit a throat than when the target is already laying prone.

The rogue smiles as he sees the four adventurers beginning to stir. They didn’t even have someone on watch.

“Fuckin’ amateurs,” the bard laughs over her comm. She’s the farthest from the adventurers’ bedrolls. She starts a lazy jog towards the cluster of four.

“It’s embarrassing,” the fighter agrees as he sprints for the closest adventurer and pins her to the ground with his heavy boot. She tries to push herself up, fumbling for her weapon, but the fighter keeps her immobilized. He looks up at the rogue, perched on the second floor, whose sniper rifle is trained on the adventurer’s head.

The rogue exhales slowly, letting his finger gently pull the trigger.

The first adventurer’s head explodes in a mass of gore, covering their party members in brain matter and blood. The rogue nods, a satisfied look on his face, before quickly reloading.

The barbarian charges in behind the fighter and lets his heavy axe swing down at one of the adventurers who's trying to get to their feet.

A single swing of the barbarian's axe is all it takes for the adventurer to find they lack a foot to push themselves to.

“Brutal,” the bard says, a laugh in her voice, finally catching up to the rest of the party. She digs her heels into the floor and grounds herself. “Now, do it again.”

The barbarian nods and repeats the process while the adventurer screams in pain and shock. They’re left writhing on the ground while blood pours out of their legs.

“Please shut them up,” the wizard complains. She dives out from behind a water tank, icy magic collecting between her hands. She holds the orb of volatile energy close to her chest, letting it build and build. “No, wait. I’ll do it myself.”

She throws the compressed ball of icy energy through the air, pitching it at the adventurer’s heart.

The screaming stops.

Two adventurers are left. They’re both on their feet now; one holds a wand, the other has no weapons, just wraps covering their hands and wrists.

The rogue knows that these two spell trouble, the monk especially. Before he can line up a shot on them, though, the monk moves like a bullet from a gun, flying across the room to rain punches down on the Foxhound’s cleric. She dodges them expertly, ducking and weaving through the flurry of blows.

She laughs. “Come on, you can do better than that!”

The other adventurer throws a Circle of Death into the air, covering almost every Foxhound. The comm line is filled with staticky coughing. The bard and the fighter hunch over, painful coughs wracking their bodies. The rogue rolls on his side, trying to clear his airway but he hacks and hacks without relief. The wizard ducks behind cover, falling to the ground and grasping her chest.

The rogue swears as his sniper rifle goes toppling over the edge of his perch and breaks to pieces on the ground floor.

“Fuck this,” he says once he catches his breath and launches himself over the railing. He hurtles towards the ground, glowering at the adventurer who cast the Circle of Death. A moment before the rogue would impact the ground, legs shattering in the same way his rifle just did, he waves his hand in the air and casts Feather Fall on himself.

With a quick roll, he’s back on his feet, inches away from the sorcerer. The rogue plants his hands on the sorcerer’s skin. They burn, filling the room with the smell of cooked flesh. Locked in combat, the rogue and sorcerer whirl across the factory, hurtling spell after spell at each other.

The bard walks up slowly to the monk and taps him on the shoulder. “You look fun. Wanna fight?” She asks, grinning with a wide, fanged mouth.

The monk throws a punch at her but she dodges it easily, gliding underneath it like a dancer. She uses her momentum to swing back into a high kick, nailing the monk’s chin with the bottom of her heavy boot. The monk catches her ankle and twists, sending the bard to the ground.

“Fuck,” she mumbles into her comm. “Someone kill this punk.”

The fighter leaps forward tackling the monk with his full strength and sending him to the ground. He pins the monk’s arms down to his side and summons the wizard over with a quick, “04!”

The wizard leaps into action, kneels by the monk’s head, pulls her metal arm back, and punches it directly into his temple. His skull caves instantly and the monk stops struggling.

The fighter grins widely and returns to his feet. “Need a hand?” He asks the rogue.

“Don’t ruin my fun,” the rogue replies, narrowing his eyes as he dances around the sorcerer, sparks flying from his hands. His magic is overflowing from his body, glimmers of light pouring out of his pores. He glows with an unnatural aura.

“You need to cool down,” the cleric says, her eyes tightening. She holds tight to her wand, collecting the energy she needs for a spell in strands of purple light.

“I have it under control,” the rogue huffs. He grits his teeth in frustration as the sorcerer throws another Shield up, blocking his latest Witch Bolt. The black lightning around the rogue’s body builds and builds, until only his silhouette can be seen through the incandescent light that surrounds him.

All at once, the electricity shoots off his body and into the heart of the sorcerer. They don’t have a chance to scream before they fall to the ground in a limp heap.

“Ugh, too easy,” the bard says, kicking the corpse of the monk. “I want something more fun next time.”

The rogue rolls his eyes and tries to shake the sparks of light off of his body. “You’re just jealous you didn’t get any kills.”

“Okay, Mister Kill Stealer. At least I’m a team player.”

“Hey, I’m doing what The Doctor told me to do. I’m using my serum, 03. What are you doing?”

“Enjoying the show, mostly,” the bard laughs. “Don’t look so pissed off at me.”

The rogue grits his teeth, a tense line in his shoulders. “I’m not covering for you with The Trainer.”

The bard shrugs, looking around the factory at the mess of gore. She kneels over the monk’s body and brushes his hair off his face. She smirks sardonically.

The fighter wipes blood from his face, collateral damage from being too close to the first kill. “Are we our own extraction team?”

“As long as we’re not the clean up crew,” the barbarian says, looking down at his blood soaked boots.

“Almost forgot the most important part,” the rogue says, pulling out his sword which crackles with black, smoky lightning. The wizard, fighter, and barbarian each pull out their own weapons and make their way to corpses.

The last thing that can be heard on the security footage is the rhythmic sawing of four decapitations.

Sklonda leans forward and presses the power button on the monitor. Her eyes burn from how many times she’s watched this tape on repeat. She knows there’s something here.

There’s something in the footage that’s important.

She just needs to find it.

Riz rips at the hands in front of him, tearing into the flesh with his teeth and clawing at anyone who reaches out for him. Suddenly, his hands are pinned to his side, rendering his claws useless, and a bag is thrown over his head. He bites and tears at it with his teeth, trying to get free but the fabric is unbreakable.

“Let me go!” Adaine screams. He hears her magic getting dispelled over and over again. “Let us go!” Her voice is already hoarse from screaming.

Riz hears the shink! of a Dimension Door, then the fizzle of a Counterspell. He smells the cayenne pepper and cinnamon of Fig’s magic. He can picture her seething as she is kept from casting any spells. Or maybe she’s not seething. Maybe she’s closer to a feral rage.

He knows he should stop thrashing around, trying to get free. He would be better off using his energy listening to his surroundings, trying to gather any sort of information, but some animalistic instinct in him keeps him fighting.

“Get off of her,” Gorgug growls, sounding as mad as Riz has ever heard him. “Get the fuck off of her!”

The room is filled with shouts, some from his allies and some from unfamiliar voices. Riz rips at the bag over his head with his teeth like a rabid dog with a bone. He can’t stand being blinded. He needs to know what’s happening; he’s an investigator. Losing one of his senses is more than a little crippling.

Not to mention the agony he feels hearing his closest friends screaming and not knowing what's happening to them. It’s torturous.

Riz hears chanting begin and it sounds almost familiar. He’s heard this before, the verbal component to a Teleportation Circle. But something is off about it, modified by just a single degree.

Teleportation Circles normally don’t work on unwilling targets.

Riz gets a sinking feeling that this one is about to.

“Let us fucking out!” Riz screams, slamming his hands against the glass wall of his cell. “Come back, come back, and let us out!”

He punctuates each word with another slam of his balled up fists on the glass. It doesn’t crack, doesn’t vibrate, doesn’t budge an inch. He can’t stop punching it anyway. He’s trapped, completely and totally, but he can’t do nothing so he does what he knows how to do.

He bashes his hands on the walls that entrap him.

Riz tries desperately not to think about the palimpsest. He tries not to think of the way that his hands bled from scratching at the crystal walls.

He finds it’s hard not to think about it when his hands start bleeding again.

“Gods, The Ball, stop it.”

Riz slams his fists a final time into the glass and feels his pinkies shatter.

“Fuck.”

“Are you done?”

“Are you just going to sit there?” Riz hisses, whipping around to face Fabian who’s sitting on a low cot pushed against one wall. He looks like a dog with his hackles raised, sitting too straight to be comfortable, eye darting around the room.

“I’m not going to waste my energy hurting myself if it’s not going to help us get out of here,” Fabian says. “Ever hear of biding your time?”

Riz narrows his eyes. He understands Fabian’s point. It’s the logical thing to do. But some part of his brain refuses to let him rest. He has to be doing something. He’s a mouse in a trap chewing off its own leg. He fights the two sides of his brain, logical and reactive, and begs his mind to find some middle ground that will allow him to catch his breath, to plan, and to, eventually, escape.

He storms across the cell, pacing from end to end of it. “What do we do?”

“We—”

An earsplitting screech suddenly echoes through their cell and Riz drops to his knees. He looks desperately around the room, searching for the source of the sound. Instead, what he sees is a circular device break in half and fly towards him.

The piercing sound in his ears dulls his reaction time and he can’t put his hands up to block the device from impacting him before it's too late. The two half circles latch together, encircling his throat. It locks with a resounding click and the screeching sound stops.

Riz slowly turns to face Fabian, fear on his face. He meets Fabian’s eye but there’s no reassurance to be found in his face, just an equal amount of anxious dread. Around his throat is the same thick collar that Riz now wears.

“What, uh, what—”

“Let me heal your hands, The Ball,” Fabian says. Riz wonders if he changed the subject because he managed to fight past his fear and reprioritize, or because he doesn’t know what to do about their new neck accessories.

Either way, Riz didn’t even remember he was hurting until Fabian reminded him. He looks down at his hands, blood and bruises down the sides of them, pinkies swollen and blue.

“Oh,” Riz says, realizing how much damage he’s done to himself. He reaches up with one hand and touches the collar gently. “But—”

Fabian opens his mouth, whispers a Healing Word, but as the magic leaves his mouth in a wisp of blue-green smoke, a black foggy tendril comes from his collar and rips the smoke out of the air, dispersing it into a gray mist. The healing magic never makes it to Riz’s aching fingertips.

“They’re Counterspellers,” Riz whispers. He could’ve guessed.

“Maybe just for healing magic?” Fabian asks, moving his hands in the somatic gesture for Faerie Fire. He tosses the ball of magenta light across the room but, again, the black tendril rips it from the air before the spell can take effect. “Shit.”

“Bardic Inspiration?” Riz asks.

“Hard to feel inspired in a place like this but I believe in you, The Ball.”

The black fog interrupts the sparkling golden magic on its way to Riz’s temple. It disperses into a cloud of smoke.

“Fuck,” Riz mutters. “That limits our options.” He deflates. Not only were they separated from the other Bad Kids but they were stripped of their belongings—all the way down to the rings on Riz’s fingers—and now Fabian was stripped of his magic, too. “What the fuck do we do?” He mutters.

“Don’t tell me you’re giving up already.”

“Fuck no. I—I’m deliberating. Give me a second.”

Riz’s pacing turns more purposeful, giving the room a thorough search. He starts with the cell’s glass wall that shows a plain, white hallway, almost clinical in appearance. There are strips of blue LED lights along the ground, lining the path. Whoever took the six of them has access to arcanotech, then. He presses his face against the glass and looks as far left and right as he can but there’s nothing to be seen but monotonous, monochromatic, empty walls.

The door that they were pushed through is invisible now that it’s closed. There are no visible seams where Riz would expect to see them whatsoever. The glass wall is almost completely smooth and nondescript, save for two small, latched windows that stand across from each other, one on his side of the wall and one in the hallway. Riz can tell that the wall is at least ten inches deep based on the space between the windows. He tries to open the latch on his side but finds it locked in place. It seems like a miniature interlock system; at least one of the two doors will be locked at any given time.

If he had to guess, this small receptacle will be the delivery system for their meals. He presses his lips together tightly, biting on the insides of them. Their captors don’t intend for this to be a short term captivity, it seems.

He runs his hand along the edges of the glass wall, hoping to find a weak point, a crack, something, that could give him hope for an easy escape. Some sort of indicator that the structural integrity of the cell isn’t as strong as he fears that it is but, if the state of his hands is any indication, the glass isn’t going anywhere.

He gives up on the glass and studies the other walls in their cell, all plain, white plaster. He knocks on them, listening for hollowness or weakness. There’s not a defining characteristic to any part of them, though, so Riz moves on.

There are two uncomfortable looking cots, smaller than single mattresses, pushed against opposite walls of the room. Fabian sits on his and it sags dangerously under his weight. The aluminum legs are made of rounded brackets. Riz flips the other cot over and tries to get enough leverage to snap a portion of the legs off to fashion into a weapon but he finds it impossible.

In the back corner, there’s an empty bookshelf leaning against the wall of a tiny, cubicle-sized room. Riz opens its door and finds a bathroom, complete with a toilet, standing shower, and short sink with no mirror over it.

A bathroom. A bookshelf. Two beds.

There’s something about this facsimile of a house being crammed inside his cell that makes him sick. Everything about it screams, we intend to keep you here for a long, long time.

Finally, he turns his eye to Fabian, sitting on the cot. His eye alternates between darting between parts of their cell and staring at Riz with barely disguised panic in his gaze. He looks at Riz like he’s begging Riz to save them.

Riz sighs. He doesn’t know how to do that yet.

“I’m not sure, uh, what the approach is. I mean, I don’t have any of my gear. You don’t have magic.” Riz tilts his head to the side, confused. “Wait, why am I collared?”

“What?”

“I don’t have any magic. Why did they put a collar on me?”

“What does that matter, The Ball?”

“Until we break out, everything matters. Everything is either a clue or something we can use to our advantage, got it? We use everything we’re given, we take every opportunity we can find, and we get the hell out of here.”

Fabian flexes his jaw and nods tensely. “Okay.”

“Yeah, so. I don’t know yet. But pay attention and we might, uh, we might find the opening we’re looking for.”

“Even if we get out of this cell, what then? We have no idea where we are or how to get out of here. We’re clearly outnumbered. Whoever the fuck captured us, they were already able to overpower us once. Don’t you think they can do it again? Especially now that we’re separated?”

“Don’t give up already, man. Yeah, they got us once but whoever they are, they took us by surprise. Maybe we can take them by surprise, too.” Riz taps his finger on his lips in thought.

“I’m not giving up. Fuck that. I’m gonna kill the next guy who opens that door, whether or not it helps us get out.”

A laugh escapes Riz’s lips without his permission. He blows out a breath, feeling some small bit of relief from the way he’s been wound up since they were taken.

“Not if I get to them first.”

“Good afternoon, you two.”

Riz jerks to his feet at the sound of a foreign voice. He looks through their glass wall into the hallway and sees a half-orc with dark green, almost blue skin. She has a warm smile on her face but it doesn’t reach her eyes. All Riz can find in them is a disturbing intensity that burrows into Riz’s skin. She wears a crisp, white button-down, black slacks, and black oxfords.

Riz keeps his mouth firmly shut. He’ll let this stranger talk for as long as he can, gathering information, before he says a word.

“It’s so good to have you here at our facility. We’ve been planning for this moment for a long, long time. It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you, Riz Gukgak and Fabian Seacaster.”

Riz tilts his head up defiantly, still silent. He’s glad that Fabian took the cue from him to stay quiet.  Riz watches him out of the corner of his eye and takes note of his confident stance. Whether it’s real or put-on, Riz can’t be certain, but he hopes this stranger believes it.

“I’m sorry, I’m being so rude. I haven’t introduced myself yet. You may call me The Director. I’m the one in charge of Project Foxhound, the very project you now find yourself a part of. You’ll find that I’m quite eager to be able to start the process in its entirety now that we have the final six pieces to the puzzle.” She clasps her hands together. “I’m so happy to have you finally join us. We’ve been working hard to prepare for your arrival.”

“What do you want with us?” Fabian asks.

Riz bites his tongue. He had hoped to let this “Director” monologue for a little longer before interrupting.

“Well, that’s the best part. The six of you will, in time, become weapons. That may sound harsh, I understand, but I can guarantee you that you’ll get just as much out of this arrangement as we will. You’ll be improved in every possible way. You’ll be different people by the time we're done with you. Well,” she laughs lightly, “‘done’ might not be the right word. I anticipate a long future spent with the six of you. I hope that you’ll, one day, look forward to it as much as I do.”

Riz glowers at her. She’s crazy if she thinks that he’ll ever be a voluntary part of this plan of hers.

Still, he’s desperate to know more. His lips are burgeoning with the words. He can’t stop himself from blurting out a question. “Who is ‘we?’”

“We are The Sculptors. You’ll meet us all soon enough but all you need to know for now is that you’ll be working with a few geniuses in their field, all assigned to Project Foxhound. I hope you’re eager to meet them. They’ll be the ones working on your improvements.”

“What do you mean by improvements?” Fabian’s posture deflates with every word from The Director. “What are you improving, exactly?”

“It’s easier to say what we aren’t improving. Riz, Fabian, in very short order, you will be remade. I am desperately looking forward to watching that process unfold.” The Director’s voice is a mixture between clinical detachment from the things she’s saying and earnest eagerness about the way things will go. It’s a disorienting mix that makes reading her almost impossible for Riz.

There’s something in her face, as well, that Riz just barely notices. Tiny microexpressions around the corner of her eyes that don’t quite seem to line up with the words that she’s saying. He tries to make sense of it but his brain is consumed with following the river of information that she’s divulging.

“But I must go and greet our other guests. It was a pleasure, truly. I’m excited to see what you two will become.”

The Director leaves them with another warm smile before sweeping down the hallway.

“What the fuck, what the fuck,” Riz mutters. “Holy shit.” Every emotion he repressed for the past three minutes comes out at once. Panic, fear, curiosity, dread. “What the fuck is going on?” He paces to the back of their cell.

“The Ball,” Fabian warns. “We’ve got company.”

Riz’s head snaps to the glass wall, vibrating with anxiety. His blood is pumping hard and fast through his veins.

Two guards press their fingertips into the glass wall, an invisible panel on the outside of it, Riz thinks, and lean in for a retina scan. With a resounding click, the door swings open.

Riz wastes no time. He uses the feral instinct in him, the fight in fight or flight, to throw himself at the closest guard, fangs bared and claws drawn.

A second before his claws would’ve gone through the guard’s jugular, Riz’s vision whites out and he collapses in a heap. He hears screaming.

He recognizes the voice. It’s his own.

His brain finally registers the pain that’s coursing through his body and Riz continues to scream, overwhelmed with the worst agony he’s ever felt, tenfold. He’s no stranger to pain, an adventurer couldn’t possibly be, but this is unlike anything he’s felt before. It’s pain that goes from his toes to the tips of his ears. It’s pain that makes him forget his own name. It’s pain he can taste.

The pain originates from his neck. Riz can’t understand why. Did the guard attack him? Was a spell cast on him? He didn’t see either guard move an inch before he went down.

Riz hears another voice shouting. Unlike his, it’s coherent enough to put words together.

It takes every bit of his attention focused on the sound to make the words out.

“I’ll go! I won’t fight.”

“Liars will be punished much more harshly, Fabian.”

“I’m not lying. I’ll go with you, just stop hurting him. Please.”

Riz peels open an eyelid and sees Fabian on his knees with his hands behind his head. He’s looking straight at Riz as he speaks to the guards.

Suddenly, the agony stops. His arms and legs twitch uncontrollably, aftershocks of the pain. Riz pants, mouth open and breath hot against the tile floor. He’s kicked by a guard and he slides back into the cell, slamming into Fabian.

Fabian drops his hands and places one on Riz’s shoulder. He shakes him. “Get up,” he whispers. “You’re good, man.”

Riz would laugh if he could breathe properly but his body still isn’t in full working order. He’s as far from “good” as he can imagine.

He puts a hand on his throat, where the waves of agony originated, and is surprised to feel the collar there. He had forgotten, somehow, about it while in the throes of pain. Now he understands why he is collared, too. It isn’t just a Counterspeller. And if it can also cast Power Word: Pain on its wearer, Riz wonders what else it’s capable of.

“Up, now!” The guard shouts and Fabian drops his hand from Riz’s shoulder to push himself to his feet in a rush. He scrambles for the door, leaving Riz abandoned and alone on the cold floor of their cell.

“No, don’t leave,” Riz says through an exhale. Fabian turns around and gives him a final, desperate look before the guards grab his arms and drag him out of Riz’s sight. “No,” Riz repeats, letting his eyes fall shut again. His limbs continue to twitch.

Fabian volunteered himself for who knows what in order to protect Riz. He’s being dragged away to danger, surely, because Riz acted out. He doesn't know what he was thinking. It was irresponsible to go on the attack without a plan in place like he did. He was so overwhelmed with a pure, unadulterated frenzy that he let his rational side lose out to his animalistic one.

He wishes he could go back and stop Fabian from making the deal with the guards. Riz should’ve been the one who was taken. He breathes heavily and stews in his regret.

“Don’t leave,” he whispers, uselessly, into an empty cell.

“Put your back against the wall,” the guard demands from the other side of the glass. Riz scrambles to his feet and follows his instructions, though he doesn’t look at the guard for a second.

His eyes are locked on Fabian.

He’s being lugged by two guards, held up by his armpits, down the hallway towards their cell. His legs drag on the ground. He looks too weak to pick them up himself.

The guard unlocks their cell’s door and throws Fabian inside it. Riz fights every instinct in his body that’s telling him to run to Fabian and presses harder against the far wall instead. He’s not going to act up again, not when it has the potential to hurt Fabian like this.

The guard slams the door shut and the three figures, wearing all-white helmets that cover their faces and matching white armor, march down the hallway, out of sight.

Riz runs to Fabian’s side and drops to his knees. “Fabian?”

Fabian moans, barely audible.

“Fabian, what’s going on?”

Riz tries to roll him over with all of his strength. Fabian just barely flips onto his back, exposing his pallid, sweating face. His eye is half-lidded and his breath comes out in gasps, then heaving exhales.

“Fabian?”

“They injected me with something.”

Riz’s stomach drops. “Just to make you sick?”

“No, no,” he stops to catch his breath, winded by just a few words. “They said it would make me better.”

“How?”

Fabian sighs. “They used the word ‘brawn.’ Do I—do I look brawny?”

Riz looks away from his sickly face to study Fabian’s body. He sees thick muscles that weren’t there two hours ago. He sees a firmness to his form, a heft, that Fabian didn’t use to have. He grimaces.

“That bad, huh?”

“You look different. Do you feel different?”

“I feel fucking terrible. ‘Flu-like symptoms for twenty four hours,’ they said. But that I should look on the bright side of things; once those twenty four hours are done, I’ll have their ‘gift’ for the rest of my life.”

“What the fuck,” Riz mutters. “How do you even… how does that work? Some serum injection making you stronger, is that even possible?”

Fabian pushes himself up to a seated position, arms shaking through the motion. “We have proof that it does.” He looks at his chest, broader and strong. He turns his arms back and forth, studying the thick cords of muscle that flex and relax as he moves.

Riz gets to his feet and offers Fabian his hand. “Let’s get you in bed,” he says, barely registering his words. He doesn’t know what else to do with Fabian but let him rest. He’s still sweating profusely, having to wipe the perspiration off his top lip over and over again.

Riz barely helps, unable to support Fabian’s new mass, but with Fabian’s help, he’s able to settle him into his cot. Riz pulls the pillowcase off his own pillow and rushes to the bathroom sink. He dampens the cloth, wrings it out, and rushes back to Fabian’s bedside. Riz gently wipes the sweat off his face, cooling his skin by a measure.

“I’m confused,” he says, thinking out loud, like he has with a hundred cases before. “They told you they made you stronger, right? And The Director said they’d be improving us. But they threw us in captivity and hurt us. So are we victims or assets to them?”

Fabian sighs and pushes Riz’s hand away.

“I think we’re both, The Ball.”

“You can come with or without pain. Make your choice.”

Riz kneels on the ground next to Fabian’s cot. He hasn’t moved for a few hours, except to wet his pillowcase again. Fabian’s fever is getting worse and it’s beginning to scare Riz. He knows, with a flu, things will seem to get worse before they get better, but what if this isn’t a regular flu? What if the serum they injected Fabian with wasn’t safe and he was slowly dying from it now?

“He needs help, please. I don’t want to leave him.”

The guard holds a remote in his hand, his thumb resting on a large, silver button. “With or without pain.”

Riz grits his teeth and gets to his feet. “Okay. Without.”

“Hands behind your back.”

Riz follows the command.

“Turn around.”

He feels handcuffs go around his wrists and another bag is thrown over his head. Riz hisses involuntarily as his vision is blotted out before stopping himself. He doesn’t want to risk getting Power Word: Pain used on him again and, with the collar, that seems to be an ever-present risk. He lets the guard grab his arm and walk him down the long hallway.

Riz takes deep, steeling breaths and begins to count. He walks one hundred and fifty three steps before turning right. Then, another forty seven steps. Two hundred and five after a left turn and finally, thirty seven steps after another right turn. He listens for any sounds to distinguish what he might be walking past but there’s not a single sound besides the humming of the fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

He hears a door open and he’s led inside the new room which is darker than the hallway. The small amount of light that once filtered through the bag over his head is completely gone. He swallows nervously.

The bag is ripped away and Riz takes in his surroundings.

In the center is a narrow hospital bed with restraints at the center and foot of the bed. The walls are filled with medical supplies. Over the bed is a single, bright white light that shines down on it like an interrogator’s lamp. There’s a small rolling table near the bed that has all kinds of metal instruments; it’s laden with needles, forceps, and scalpels, amongst other things. Finally, there’s an IV pole at the head of the bed, filled with a dark green fluid.

It’s an operating room. And Riz knows who the unlucky patient is.

“Please, no,” he says, shaking his head furiously. “No, no, please.”

He doesn’t know what they intend on doing to him but he knows he wants no part of it.

He can’t overpower the number of guards in this room, though, even if he had every trick up his sleeve. He’s manhandled to the bed and his legs are tightly restrained by the ankles. He feels exposed, defenseless, afraid. His arms are next, released from their handcuffs. In the handful of seconds that they’re not in any kind of restraint, he contemplates reaching for a scalpel and making his stand, but he knows it’s a hopeless act.

Before he knows it, his hands are tied, too.

The hospital bed is large, meaning that the restraints have Riz’s legs spread widely. It instantly triggers a deep seated fear in him that wraps his heart in a vice. He’s never felt so vulnerable in his life. Not in the Nightmare Forest, not trapped in a palimpsest, not even in the basement of the Hotel Cavalier. On this operating table, he feels like his body is being served up on a platter and he doesn’t know who will be taking advantage of that, or what they might have planned for him.

Despite every effort to repress the feeling, terror seeps through the cracks of Riz’s armor. He shakes, restraints rattling, and waits for the other shoe to drop.

The door swings open again and a human enters. He wears a long, white lab coat and carries a clipboard. He smiles slowly at Riz.

“I’ve been looking forward to you, especially.”

Panic spikes through Riz’s body and he tries to wrench his legs out of their restraints. Not to run, no—he knows that won’t go well—but just so he can curl up into a ball and protect himself from whatever is to come.

“There’s no need to be afraid, Riz. I’m here to help you.”

“I don’t want your help,” Riz says and, though he wants to sound brave, the words come out as a plea.

“You’ll come to appreciate it in time, I promise you that. You’re the luckiest of the Foxhounds, I think.” The man’s smile grows, real pride behind it. “We’ve spent, by far, the most time working on your improvement, Riz. The augmentation that you’re receiving will alter your life considerably and you’ll thank us for it one day.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it. I’m fine the way I am.”

“I agree. You are fine the way you are. We don’t want fine, though. We want excellent. We want elite, do you understand? That’s why each of you will be receiving these improvements. We’ve analyzed something that you each lack and, with some very intensive science and magic combined, we found a way to eliminate those weaknesses. Isn’t that exciting?”

Riz glowers at the man.

“Oh, Riz. You’ll see. Once your deficiency has been eradicated, you’ll understand.”

Riz can barely resist the urge to spit in this man’s face.

“Now, I should introduce myself. You can call me The Doctor. We’ll be working together quite closely, Riz. Project Foxhound is something very important to me. I’ll be supervising all of your medical needs, yours and the other Foxhounds. If there’s ever something that you need, don’t hesitate to call on me. I have no desire but to keep you in perfect working order. Do you understand?”

Riz refuses to acknowledge The Doctor, opting to narrow his eyes at him, instead. He sees the same strange microexpressions that Riz noticed on The Director around the corner of his lips. He files the information away for later and continues to stare, unblinkingly, at The Doctor.

“I see. You won’t behave today but, in time, I’m sure you’ll come around.” The Doctor hands his clipboard to a guard and begins to wash his hands in an aluminum sink. He slips on a pair of long rubber gloves and turns back to Riz.

Riz squirms under his eye, wishing he weren’t restrained. “It won’t work. Whatever you want me to do for you, I won’t do it. You’ll never get what you want.”

The Doctor smiles. He takes the injection kit’s needle and presses it against the skin at the crook of Riz’s elbow. Riz watches it pierce through his skin.

“You’d be surprised at what a fragile thing conviction can be.”

Chapter Text

Fabian was removed from Riz’s cell six hours ago. Riz has been driving himself crazy ever since, wondering what was happening to him. Was he being punished? “Improved?” Would he be coming back?

Riz can do nothing but ruminate and pace the cell, looking for anything he might’ve missed in the past seven days.

It’s been a painful week. Not physically. Riz knows not to break any more rules that could cause him to get Power Word: Pain cast on him again. He begs Fabian to behave, too. He doesn’t want to see him hurt either. But the week’s been painful in its excruciating boredom.

There’s absolutely nothing to do when they’re inside their cell. No books on their bookshelf, no crystals to scroll through. They don’t even have a clock to watch tick, tick, and tick, just to keep themselves entertained.

Their only indication of the time is the three meals a day that are delivered through their tiny interlocked antechamber on shallow trays.

It’s good food, Riz admits with displeasure. It’s fresh, always warm, and there’s plenty of it. He never quite ate enough in his day-to-day life, not having the money to spare on things like filling his plate, but here, he takes advantage of every bite he’s offered. If nothing else, he’s building strength for their eventual escape.

He just wishes they would give them coffee, too. The caffeine headache for his first five days was not easy to shrug off.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as the reaction he had to his injection by The Doctor. He was sick in bed for a full day, sweating and shaking, though he wasn’t sure if the shakes were from the drug itself or the aftereffects of the fear he was feeling on the operating table.

Every night this week, he’s dreamt of being restrained and woken up thrashing around in his cot. He has the bruises to show for it from rolling out of his cot and colliding with their cold tile floor.

Still, every time he wakes up falling out of bed, he’s grateful because it means he isn’t in restraints.

Riz gives up on his search of the cell and sinks into his cot. There’s nothing new to be found, nothing at all. If there were, he would’ve seen it at some point in the last 168 hours.

He’s suddenly struck with the idea that it might not have been a week. Sure, the lights have dimmed seven times, suggesting it was time for him and Fabian to sleep, but who’s to say that their captors have them running on a twenty-four hour clock? Could they be making time run faster or slower as some form of psychological manipulation?

Riz collapses back, letting his head hit the pillow with a thump. He doesn’t know what to think.

He stares at the pockmarked ceiling and counts the seconds. He has nothing else to do.

Riz snaps to attention and yanks himself out of bed. He puts his back to the far wall before the guard can ask him to and holds his hands over his head.

“Good man,” the guard says through his mask. “We brought you a new roommate.”

Riz’s ears perk up. Who was it going to be? Where had Fabian gone? Why were they making a change now?

Another guard comes into view, dragging a limp, twitching Fig over his shoulder.

Riz lunges forward on instinct, needing to be there for her, before the guard pulls out his remote and Riz flings himself back, impacting the wall hard. “Sorry,” he gasps.

The guard nods and gestures for the other one to deliver Fig into the cell. He hefts her into the cot and spins on his heel, closing the glass door behind him.

“Why?” Riz asks quickly.

“The Director says she needed a companion who could help her understand that her actions are only hurting herself,” the guard says with a shrug. “She was assigned here.”

“I want to talk to The Director,” Riz says quickly. “Can—can you tell her that? I want to talk to her.”

The guard shrugs again and marches out of view.

Riz rushes over to Fig’s side. She continues to twitch, muscles firing without rest. “What’s going on?”

“Power Word: Stun has some lasting effects, apparently,” Fig says with a hoarse laugh. Her voice tremors with each full body contraction. “Who would’ve thought?”

Riz thinks about times in battle when he’s seen it cast. He’s never seen the victim left like this, after the fact. “No, it doesn’t.”

“When they use it five, maybe eight times, yeah, man. It does.” Her teeth clack together painfully. Riz cringes at the sound and puts his hand on her jaw, holding it open to keep the twitches from cracking her teeth. “‘Tanks,” Fig says, speech affected. “You’re ta ‘est.”

Riz smiles sadly. “Hey, Fig,” he says, going back a few steps now that he understands what’s going on. “It’s good to see you.”

Fig closes her eyes and sighs. “Good to ‘ee you, too.” She takes another deep breath and her limbs begin to relax. The full body shaking turns into small twitches, then, in a few minutes, to nothing at all. “Fuck,” she says, pushing Riz’s hand away. “Finally.”

“You okay?” Riz asks casually, like it wasn’t almost impossible to see Fig so weak and powerless.

“Fuck no. I’m pissed,” Fig hisses, pushing herself up so she can lean against the wall. “I can’t fucking believe these guys with their ‘in time, you’ll understand,’ bullshit. Hell no, I won’t. I’m going to be spitting mad until the day I fucking die in here.”

Riz falls back on his heels, slapped in the face by her words. “We’re not going to die in here.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause I don’t see a way out.”

Riz frowns. “We’re biding our time.” Fig scoffs. “We are. If we play along—”

“I’m not playing along with people who are torturing me every single day.”

“You’re being tortured?”

Fig’s anger turns to confusion. “You’re not?”

“No, Fig. I mean, on the first day, yeah. The collar fucked me up. And then, uh, the serum? That was rough. But since then, no, dude.”

“Sexist,” Fig huffs. “That’s messed up.”

Riz raises an eyebrow. “What— no. Uh, not to blame you or anything but what have you been doing when you get tortured?”

“Oh, the usual stuff. Talking back. Clawing out the eyes of my guards. Refusing to get out of bed. Nothing special,” Fig says sardonically.

“Fig,” Riz warns. “You won’t get punished if you don’t act out.”

Fig’s head snaps to Riz and she glares with the fires of hell in her eyes. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding, right? You’re already playing into their hand?”

Riz flinches back. “I’m not playing into anything. I’m being self-preserving. You should do the same.”

There’s real anger and spite on Fig’s face. “Fuck that, Riz. Seriously, fuck that. There’s no way in—”

Riz hears footsteps and shushes Fig. He sees, stepping into view, a tall figure in a white button down, black slacks, and shiny black shoes. They’re a tiefling with short, curved horns and dark purple skin. Riz scrambles backwards and pushes his back against the far wall. Fig doesn’t move from her cot.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Fig asks bitterly.

“It’s a pleasure to see you both again,” the woman says. “This must be strange for you, seeing my new face, but I assure you that I’m still The Director that you know.”

Riz frowns. “Weren’t you a half-orc?”

“I have many faces,” The Director says. Riz takes note of the way her upper lip moves, slightly out of sync with the rest of her face. It’s almost like a visual glitch. He remembers seeing it before in the other face of The Director, as well as on The Doctor’s face. “But enough about that. I was told you wanted to talk to me, Riz. What can I do to help you?”

Fig scoffs. “Help us?”

“Believe me, Figueroth—”

“It’s Fig.”

“My apologies. Fig, please believe me when I say that I’m here to help you as much as you six are here to help me. I’m earnest in my offer to help.”

“I want to know what’s going on,” Riz says. “Where did Fabian go? Why is Fig here?”

“Rude.”

“Are the others okay?” Riz finishes.

“Quite a lot of questions. I admire your inquisitiveness, Riz, and I’d be happy to answer all of your queries. First, Fabian is doing just fine. He and Adaine are new roommates and, as long as they get along nicely, we won’t need to make another change for some time.”

“And Fig?”

“Well, Fig was causing problems. She has a fiery soul. That will be adjusted in time, but in the meantime, we wanted to see if she would behave better if she had a voice in her ear telling her how important her cooperation is.”

“Is that voice supposed to be me? Why would I tell her to cooperate?”

The Director smiles. “Because, Riz, you’ve already figured out that it’s much easier to do so. You don’t want to get punished and you don’t want your friends to be punished either. Am I correct in assuming that?” Riz resents what The Director is getting at but he nods tightly anyway. “We hope that your philosophy might rub off on Fig—”

“Fuck that,” Fig spits.

“—in time,” The Director says, unflinchingly. “Or, if she is not able to adjust her behavior on her own, we can always adjust it for her. The Circlet is not a device we take any joy in using but we understand that it may be a necessity in certain cases.”

Riz grits his teeth. He knows The Director is waiting for him to ask. He follows the script grudgingly. “What’s the Circlet?”

“A neural reprogrammer. Like I said, we don’t want to use it. We admire the six of you and your true selves. We know that your party is already incredibly effective. I have no desire to upset the delicate balance that already exists between the six of you. Any manual reprogramming is a last resort. I’d hate to sap away your personalities, let alone any of your intelligence. But I will if I must.”

Riz swallows. “So we’ll be sent to the Circlet if we don’t do what we’re told.”

The Director nods. “You understand, of course, the necessity of the thing.”

“I’m not sure that I do. You haven’t even told us why we’re here, yet.” Riz’s hand twitches, going for the omnipresent notepad he keeps in his back left pocket. It’s not there, of course. He tries to take notes on his mental clue board, instead, and hopes he can remember the details.

The Director smiles. “I’m very glad you asked. The six of you are the very vital faces of Project Foxhound. The bullet in our gun, so to speak. We’ve seen your expertise and competence in the field, especially when it comes to dealing with rogue adventuring parties. Think of Solace as a forest. The abundance of adventuring parties in our nation are the trees. Some of those trees simply need a bit of pruning, so to speak, for the sake of the forest as a whole.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Fig asks impatiently.

“We are training you, the Foxhounds, in order to transform you into an elite team of agents, capable of eradicating any little problems that we may find in our nation. By the end of your training, you will be new people, entirely remade. You will be unstoppable. You will be weapons.

“I’m so eager to watch that transformation occur.”

Riz’s stomach sinks. He doesn’t want to be a weapon in someone else’s arsenal. He knows he’s done terrible things but he did them for good reasons. If he’s sent on someone else’s missions, he’ll be at the mercy of someone else’s ethics. He can’t do that; he won’t.

“You’re crazy, lady,” Fig blurts out. “We’re not going to do your bidding.”

The Director smiles patiently. “You will. Either through your own determination or by force; you will.” She looks down the hallway, the way she came. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must get back to work. It was a pleasure to speak with the two of you. Thank you, Riz, for calling on me.”

“The pleasure’s all yours,” Fig says, spitting at The Director’s face. The spit rolls uselessly down the glass, leaving a long stripe of saliva.

The Director blinks and tightly smiles. “Take care, you two.” She bustles away.

“Fig,” Riz says urgently, “what are you thinking? Didn’t you hear what she said about the Circlet? Do you want to get your personality zapped out of you? You have to stop—”

“Stop what, being myself? Stop calling something out when it’s bullshit? No way, dude. I’m not following a single fucking rule until I get out of here. And even then! I’m done following rules. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

Riz swears under his breath. “Fig, maybe you don’t care but I do. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Fig scowls. “Too bad, man. You’re not going to convince me to sit down and shut up. There’s no way.”

Riz slides down the wall, putting his head between his knees.

“Fuck.”

The bag is ripped off of Riz’s head and he blinks rapidly, eyes adjusting to the bright lights. He’s in a gym, of a sort. The edges of the room are crowded with weight machines, treadmills, and stationary bikes. He sees a rowing machine and a set of ellipticals on the far wall. The center of the gym, though, is wide open. It reminds Riz of the bards' gymnastics studio at Aguefort. The ground looks sprung and he imagines it would be satisfying to practice his acrobatics on it.

There are a cluster of training dummies in the center of the room, humanoid figures of various heights, mounted on wheels.

Next to them stands a dwarf. She has a thick orange beard, braided into two plaits. Her face does not have the same soft smile as The Director, nor the sinister smile of The Doctor. She’s not smiling at all. She looks unhappy, impatient, and intense.

Riz resists the urge to cower under her glare.

“Riz Gukgak, let’s begin.”

“Oh,” Riz says, having expected a longer build-up to the action. Or maybe a monologue about the importance of his role in Project Foxhound. He almost appreciates this abrupt approach better. At least he doesn’t have to sift through any bullshit speech for important information. He can spend his energy observing, instead. “Okay.”

“Kill these three dummies.”

Riz takes a deep breath in and out, then narrows his eyes. He flips a switch in his head and enters combat mode. He leaps for the closest dummy, the one with the smallest build and snaps its neck. Next, he propels himself off that dummy’s shoulders and wraps his body around the second. With a swipe of his claws, the second dummy’s throat is slit.

Riz's body goes rigid and he falls to the ground, Power Word: Stunned.

“Not like that,” the woman says. “Use your serum.”

“What?”

“Your magic,” she elaborates, though the additional information doesn’t help clarify anything to Riz. “Kill them with your magic.”

“I don’t have any magic. Not in my blood, anyway. I need my gadgets.”

The woman sighs and pinches her nose. “The fucking Doctor. Never explains anything, makes it my job,” she mutters. “Did The Doctor not tell you, ‘hey, you’ll be seeing The Trainer soon, be prepared to show her what you can do?’”

“What? I am—I am showing you what I can do.”

“Good gods. No, kid, use your magic. The serum gave you fucking magic so use it.”

Riz is stunned. No one had stopped to explain to him what his serum would be doing, what his improvement would be. He had felt his blood carbonate, had screamed in pain, but hadn’t been told what all the pain was for. “I have magic?”

“Can you, please, gods, save the, ‘how can this be; I’m magical now?’ moment for another time? We have work to do.” The Trainer borders between impatient and angry. Riz nods quickly, not wanting to piss her off.

“Yeah, of course, uh. How do I… is there like an incantation you want me to use?”

“You’re not a fucking wizard, kid. You’ve got a sorcerer’s blood in you. Use it.”

Riz’s eyes are wide. He was a sorcerer now? He shakes his head minutely. No, he can’t waste time wondering about the implications of that. He needs to do what The Trainer was asking of him before she gets any more pissed off and takes things out on him. “Right, sorry. Uh, but won’t it be Counterspelled?”

“Not in the training room.”

Riz nods and tries to hide the flash of inspiration that crosses his face by ducking his head. He points his hand towards the third dummy and, with all his might, imagines a bolt of lightning coming from the end of it.

The lightning comes but it fizzles and pops uselessly, only arcing a foot or two away from his body.

“Oh,” he says. He was hoping having magic in his blood meant that it would come easily to him.

“Keep going.”

“Right, yeah!” Riz says, somewhere between eager and terrified. “Sorry.”

He casts again, putting all his focus on the static electricity he can feel in the air. He collects it, sees it swirling around his fingertips, and sends it out.

The arc of lightning is gorgeous, Riz thinks. Or maybe it was just the fact that he created it that had him so impressed. It goes straight through the heart of the dummy, charring its manufactured flesh. Riz smiles widely and flips around to The Trainer.

“Don’t get cocky, kid. Do it again.”

Riz doesn’t wait for another opportunity. He holds his hand out, locking his elbow, and sends out his most powerful bolt of lightning yet. It connects with The Trainer’s stomach.

She doesn’t flinch.

Riz suddenly regrets his choice. He pinches his eyes shut, waiting for pain to course through him or for guards to swarm him and carry him to the Circlet.

Nothing happens.

He peeks his eyes open. The Trainer is looking at him with an intolerant look in her eye.

“Why are—why aren’t you punishing me?”

“No need,” she says. “Your disobedience deserves punishment, yes, but not for you. One of the other Foxhounds is being punished on your behalf.”

Riz’s face falls. He could’ve handled the pain himself; he could’ve handled whatever they threw at him. But one of his friends getting punished for his own misbehavior? If Riz had any desire for recalcitrance before, it was wiped away completely by that declaration from The Trainer.

He bites his tongue hard, the pain a personal punishment for his action.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I don’t care.” Three more dummies roll onto the floor mats. “Kill the three dummies in three different ways.”

Riz tries to shut his gaping mouth. His teeth click. “Yes, ma’am.”

By the end of the hour, Riz is panting, deep heaving breaths making his chest shake. “I need—I need a break. Please.”

The Trainer nods. “We were just wrapping up, kid. Good work today.”

Riz looks up, in shock, at The Trainer’s face. “What?”

“You did good. We’ll keep working next week, got it?”

Riz doesn’t understand. He attacked his trainer and now she was telling him he did a good job. “But I—”

He feels a needle puncture his neck through his collar. His legs start to buckle and he can barely catch himself before he hits the mat, face first.

“No, what—what’s happening? Please, don’t punish me, please.” Riz’s words come out thick, his mouth instantly filled with cotton. He can’t quite enunciate, can’t quite move his mouth properly. He feels like he’s waking up from a long sleep, limp and unfocused.

His vision begins to narrow, edges going gray.

“You’re not being punished, kid. You earned yourself a reward.”

Riz’s vision goes black before his eyes can even shut.

Riz is floating somewhere above his body. He can’t feel anything, not the sheet over his body, nor the hospital gown on his skin. He can’t smell the antiseptic, nor taste the blood in his mouth from biting his tongue. He’s blissfully disconnected from what his body is going through.

He watches the surgery happen detachedly. He casually observes as his claws get torn off his fingertips and replaced with metal fingernails. They’re long, longer than he usually lets his claws grow, and sharp as knives.

Riz watches without a single thought in his head besides vague disinterest as his fingers are sliced open and metal wire is wrapped around his bones, anchoring the new claws into place. The skin is stitched back together and his hands are wrapped in soft bandages, binding his fingers into fabric cocoons.

Riz slowly floats back inside his body. He blinks a few times but can’t seem to move any of his muscles yet. He’s removed from the surgery table and thrown over the shoulder of a guard. The last thing Riz sees of the operating room is The Doctor’s vainglorious smile.

He watches the hallways pass from the guard’s back. It’s the first time his vision hasn’t been blocked out by a bag or blindfold when he’s outside his cell. They pass closed doors, endless hallways, and glass-walled cells.

Each cell that he can see is empty except for one. Inside it, Riz’s foggy brain just barely recognizes Fabian and Adaine. Adaine is eagle-eyed. She makes instant eye contact with Riz, not seeming surprised to see him. She gives him a pleading look, begging for something that Riz can’t decode.

Next to her, on the same cot, sits Fabian. He stares blankly at the wall. He looks near catatonic. There’s nothing behind his empty gaze, just a black hole where his consciousness should sit.

The guard passes their cell. Riz feels himself waking up, slowly reinhabiting his own body. He starts being able to put a few thoughts together. Some part of him wishes he could’ve stayed floating for a while longer but the other lobes in his brain are eager to get back to their clinical analysis. He counts steps again and, as he reaches his own cell, learns that he’s not as far from Fabian and Adaine’s as he thought he might be.

He’s put on his feet and Riz just barely keeps his balance. He looks inside his cell and sees Fig standing erect close to the door.

“Back off,” his guard demands.

Fig hisses and bares her teeth.

“Step back.”

She refuses to move.

“Fine,” the guard says and pulls out his remote.

“No,” Riz mumbles. He sees a Power Word: Stun course through Fig, then feels another paralyze his muscles. His teeth clench together hard and he starts tipping forward.

The guard finishes the job by swinging open the cell door and pushing Riz through it. Even if he could move, Riz couldn’t catch himself without risking damaging his fingers. He smashes forward onto the ground and he can hear more than feel his nose break. “Fuck,” he says into the tiles.

“Shit, Riz,” Fig breaks out of her paralysis and helps him to his feet without touching his hands. “What the fuck did they do to you?”

“Magic.”

“What?” Fig sits him down in his cot. “They used magic on you?”

“No, I’m magic.”

Fig looks at him quizzically. “Sure, man. But your fingers?”

“Oh, upgrade.” Riz tries to say more words at once, he really does, but he can only handle one or two at a time while his brain turns back online. “Improvement?” Blood drips down his face from his broken nose. He looks at Fig and smiles. “Hi.”

“You’re on drugs?” Fig asks. Riz nods. It would explain why he doesn’t feel any pain yet, despite his recent surgery. “Godsdamn.”

“Fig,” Riz says, swallowing blood. He takes a few deep breaths and the oxygen slowly clears his head. “You have to play along.” He smiles, proud of himself for stringing so many words together. Blood stains his teeth.

“Riz, it’s way too early to be giving up already.”

“Not giving up. Playing along. Just do what they ask.”

“It’s been a week. How can you possibly already be following their instructions?”

Riz frowns and tries to focus. His eyes alternate between unfocused and blurry. He tenses his jaw. “Slap me.”

“What?”

“Now.”

Fig chews her lower lip. She takes a deep breath in, seems to consider his words, and winds up.

The slap across his face seems to throw his consciousness back into place. Riz’s mind clears.

“Gods, thanks. I needed that.” The aftereffects of the anesthesia fade to the background and Riz feels like he has his faculties about him again. “Listen, Fig—”

“Riz, how? Why? Why are you doing what they want you to do?”

“Because the alternative is worse.”

“So you’re just giving up?”

“Fuck no. Fig, you know what I’ve learned since I got in here? I learned that if you don’t do what they want you to do, you get hurt. And if you do what they don’t want you to do, your friends get hurt. It doesn’t take much effort to just—just follow instructions. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up; it doesn’t mean I’m buying into their bullshit. I’m just looking out for myself and the rest of you.”

“Looking out for us?” Fig sits down on Riz’s cot next to him. The fabric sags under her weight.

“Fabian got dragged out of our cell when I attacked a guard.” Riz taps his foot anxiously on the floor. “Then, I attacked my trainer and she said one of you guys got punished for it. Everytime I act out, someone else gets hurt. I’m not going to do that to you guys.”

“How do you know they actually hurt us, though?”

Riz tilts his head, looking intently at Fig. “What do you mean?”

“They took Fabian away, right? But wouldn’t they have done that eventually anyway?”

“I mean, yeah, uh, I guess.”

Fig wraps her tail around Riz’s ankle. The gesture is a comfort in this cold, lonely cell. “And then they told you that someone got punished on your behalf. But how do you know if they were telling the truth?”

“Wh—what? Why would they lie?” Riz knows the answer as soon as he asks the question.

“To get you in line, Riz. Think about it. To get you too afraid to act up again.”

Riz turns to face Fig. He looks into her eyes desperately. “But what if they were telling the truth?”

Fig sighs and shrugs. “Yeah, that’s the problem, huh? There’s no way of knowing.”

“I can’t risk it.” Riz looks down at his hands, flips the back and forth and studies the way the bandages wrap around each finger. “I can’t.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

“What about you?”

“I can’t not risk it, Riz. I’m the fucking Archdevil of Rebellion. I’m not going to follow the rules. I’m sorry but there’s no other option for me.”

Riz falls back on the cot, laying on his side, feet pressed up against Fig’s hip. “Fig.”

“I know.”

“Yeah.”

He sighs and closes his eyes. “What have we gotten ourselves into? And what the fuck are we going to do?”

Fig doesn’t respond. Riz drifts off into a drowsy half-sleep and wonders if she was silent because she doesn't know or because she’s planning something.

He doesn’t know which would be worse.

Four days later, when a guard delivers Riz back to his cell, returned from a training session, Fig casts an Eldritch Blast at them.

The spell fizzles out, consumed by the black, smoky tendrils of her collar but the guard pulls out his remote regardless. Power Word: Stun sends Fig careening to the ground. Riz can hear her wrist break as her body crashes down on it.

The guard whistles and two more come running down the hallway. They sweep her up, arms under her armpits, and drag her down the hallway.

Riz is stunned into silence through the entire affair. It takes less than a minute but he doesn’t breathe the entire time, just stands two steps inside his cell and stares, wide-eyed, as things play out.

He finally gasps in a breath and his brain catches up with what happened. He knows Fig is in a lot of trouble. She’s been out of line too many times. This, if he had to guess, was the final nail in her coffin. He gets a horrible picture in his head of where she’s been sent. “The Circlet” was a terrifying concept to Riz: a neural reprogrammer that can affect the victim’s personality and intelligence. Fig might not be able to come back from that.

He swallows.

Riz looks at the hallway where the guard with the remote stands with his back to Riz. They watch Fig get dragged down the hallway.

Riz notices that the door is cracked. He stares at it. He can’t look away.

With his new claws now out of their bandages, he knows that he could easily slit this guard’s throat in a second. They wouldn’t even know they were being attacked before they were dead. Riz can see it happen now, blood dripping onto the LED strip lights that line the hallway.

He stares at the cracked door and contemplates what he should do.

Riz takes a step back.

The guard turns around, facing Riz. They notice the door and slam it closed, looking both ways down the hallway, as if to see if they were caught making a mistake. Riz blows out a breath. His opportunity is gone. He didn’t take it.

“Good on you, kid,” the guard says. “Say, why don’t I bring you something to keep you entertained while your roommate’s gone?”

Riz stares at him, unblinking, and narrows his eyes.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Give me a few minutes.”

The guard walks away. Riz falls back in his cot and wonders if his inaction was a mistake.

Riz stares at the spine of the single book that now populates his bookshelf. He hasn’t opened it yet and the spine is unlabeled so he doesn’t know what kind of book it is. His deep-seated, insatiable curiosity begs him to flip through the pages and see for himself but he fights the urge.

He won’t let himself be bribed with this reward for his “good behavior.” He knows it’s a manipulation tactic that’s meant to have him think more favorably of his captors but he refuses to let it work. All the book is to him is a reminder that he didn’t dive out of his cell to defend Fig as she was torn away from him.

That was almost twenty-four hours ago. He misses her.

He picks up the book and runs his hand along the spine. He studies the front, eyes skimming over the gold thread embroidered in soft, swooping lines across the hard cover. His fingers slip under the cover. It would be so easy to open the book. It would be nice to have something to read to distract him from the fact that Fig was gone. He had nothing else to do in his cell but think.

It would be so nice to read a book. It didn’t mean he was giving up. It was just taking advantage of his circumstances.

Besides, he earned this book. For his good behavior.

Riz flips the cover open.

He hears footsteps march behind him and he whips around, letting the book fall to the ground. It clips his toe, bruising it and he hisses in pain. He pushes his back to the wall next to the bookshelf.

All the air is ripped from his lungs as he sees Fig. There are two guards walking on either side of her. She’s not in handcuffs, nor is she blindfolded. If the look on her face is any indication, though, her eyes might as well be covered for all that she’s capable of seeing. Her gaze is completely blank. She looks just like Fabian did when Riz passed his and Adaine’s cell.

Does that mean the Circlet was used on him, too? How was that possible? Fabian wouldn’t have acted out any worse than Fig did. What had happened to get him Circletted on day eight of their captivity. No, seven? How many days had it been at that point?

It was twelve days now, Riz knows. Or, at least twelve cycles of the day-night cycle that their captors had them accustomed to. How, in twelve days, did two of his friends already end up getting themselves reprogrammed?

Fig is gently pushed into the cell. She walks mechanically to her cot and lays down.

“Fig?”

The cell door is closed and the guards leave. Riz kneels by Fig’s side. She doesn’t respond to him, just stares blankly up at the ceiling.

“Hey, Fig?” Riz shakes her shoulder. “Fig? What’s going on? Are yo—are you okay?”

Riz stares at her mouth as if she’s about to start speaking but no words come out. He puts his hand in hers and squeezes it. Fig doesn’t squeeze back.

“Fig, please. Please, please, please. Wake up.”

Riz watches her blink, the most movement her face has conveyed since she entered their cell. He wants to believe it’s a sign of some sort of acknowledgement but he’s sure it’s just a biological reaction. He sighs and dips his head forward, resting it on her cot.

“Fig.”

“Riz,” Fig wakes Riz with a start. He bangs his head on her arm, straightening up. He must’ve fallen asleep sitting next to her. “I missed you!”

Riz frowns. “Missed you, too,” he manages to say, out of obligation more than any real significance. “You okay?”

Riz focuses on this strange version of Fig in front of him. She has none of the fire in her eyes that she usually does. There’s no spirit of rebellion in the lines of her face. She looks smooth, unbothered, and content.

“I’m fine, Riz, calm down. I can see you freaking out,” she laughs. “I’m doing really well, actually.”

“How? Why? What happened to you?”

“Oh, The Director just talked to me for a while. She made me realize some stuff. I don’t know what I was thinking before. She’s right, you know?”

“What?”

“Just, like, the stuff she was saying. That we’re a good team and we could do a lot of good. We just need to be pointed in the right direction and she can help us with that. She told me about the kind of stuff we’d be doing and honestly, dude, it’s important work.”

“Wh—Fig, what?”

“You should listen to her.”

Riz feels flipped on his head. It wasn’t two days ago that Riz was the one telling Fig to go along with what their captors were telling them and she was baffled. Now, the roles were reversed.

“We’re not listening to their bullshit, remember? You said that yourself, Fig.”

Fig laughs. “That was pretty stupid of me,” she admits. “We really just have to look at the big picture, Riz. The Director says that I’ll be able to start my training sessions now. Isn’t that sick? And I’ll get my serum too. They say it’ll make me more level-headed.”

“Fig, that won’t be you.”

Fig scoffs. “It’ll be me but better. You’ll see.”

Riz bites his tongue until it hurts. “Don’t fall for it, man. You’re stronger than that.”

Fig narrows her eyes questioningly. “I’m being logical here. If anyone could appreciate that, I thought it’d be you. The Director says you’ve been doing really well, Riz. In training and with your upgrades. And your behavior. She says she’s really happy with where you are in the process.”

Riz’s jaw drops.

He’s been feeding directly into The Sculptor’s master plan, hasn’t he? He was scared into obedience for fear of retribution but, eventually, that meant he was just behaving without question. He has become the passive, agreeable cog in the machine that they want him to be. And he hadn’t even realized it until a brainwashed Fig pointed it out to him.

How has he lost himself so soon?

And how could he possibly get himself back? Now that he sees what the ultimate punishment is, the Circlet, how can he risk being anyone but the obedient captive that they want him to be?

Riz looks into Fig’s near-vacant eyes, missing so much of her personality, so much of her fire, and tries to commit to memory who she used to be.

Then, he tries to remind himself who he used to be, too.

Chapter Text

“No, please, she needs more time,” Riz begs the guard. “Let her recover for a little longer.”

The guard doesn’t react to his words, beckoning for Fig to follow him out of the cell. She jumps to her feet excitedly. “Oh, sick, am I training?”

Fig hasn’t been granted the privilege, as The Trainer calls it, of a training session yet. Riz knows it’s because she couldn’t be trusted with weapons before, but now that she’s used the Circlet, Riz assumes her training will begin in full.

“Not training yet,” the guard says. Riz grows even more nervous. Would this be another session with the Circlet? Her serum appointment with The Doctor? Something he can’t even predict? “Roommate swap again.”

Riz’s stomach drops. “Why? I’ll look after her. The Director says I was a good roommate for her. I’ll keep being good. Please.” He catches himself begging, fully debasing himself, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s entirely powerless. He may have hands tipped with sharp claws but there’s nothing he can do with them but press his palms together and pray. “Please.”

The guard sighs. “You’ll get your new roommate soon.” He perks up. “Hey, how’d you like that book? I picked it out myself.”

Riz bares his teeth and hisses.

The guard puts one hand on his remote and guides Fig out of the cell with the other. “See if I give you another one, now.”

Riz lets himself slide down the wall of his cell once the guard leaves his sight and puts his head in his hands.

It’s day eighteen of captivity, now. No, nineteen. Either eighteen or nineteen, he thinks, and he’s already losing track. Maybe his new roommate will have a better idea than he does.

And who was it going to be? Would he get to see someone he hadn’t seen yet? Riz wonders how Kristen, Adaine, and Gorgug are holding up. He imagines that Gorgug and Kristen aren’t starting many fights. He wouldn’t be surprised, though, if Adaine was starting fights. She doesn’t have any patience for injustice and isn’t afraid to lash out if she’s being mistreated. He couldn’t say that the Adaine he knew in freshman year was brave enough to speak out against it but, as seniors, she certainly doesn't put up with any bullshit anymore.

He grits his teeth at the thought of school. How many pop quizzes has he missed? How many essay due dates? Will they be able to make up the work once they escape or will they have to retake their senior year?

No, he refuses to submit to the idea that the Bad Kids will be in this facility for that long. They’ll be out soon and, with enough tutoring sessions, they’ll be able to catch up on their assignments.

He nods firmly to himself. He refuses any alternative. Besides, he bets he can persuade Principal Aguefort that this time spent in captivity and their escape—that he knows is coming—should count as an extracurricular academic credit.

Riz looks up at the glass wall and is greeted with the sight of Adaine being pushed into his cell. She collapses to the ground, writhing in pain. The guards are gone before Riz can even consider speaking up.

“Power Word: Pain?” Riz asks, scrambling to her side and putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. He tries to stay calm, as much as he wants to start a fight with the guards for causing her so much pain. There’s no reason to; there’s nothing to be gained from it. “I know that one.”

Adaine hisses through her teeth, shallow breaths, for the better part of a minute before she can make any sound. “Fuck.”

Riz is torn between a sigh of relief that she’s okay enough to speak and the urge to laugh at her first choice of word. “Hey, Adaine.”

She pushes herself up and blows her bangs off her face. She smiles sadly at him. “Hi, Riz.”

“Why did they Pain you?”

“Gods, Riz, you won’t believe what I saw on my way here,” she says, barely acknowledging his question. “Fig and Fabian were in a cell together and they were laughing. They looked like they didn’t have a care in the world. They didn’t look like themselves, Riz.”

Riz inhales, shuts his eyes tightly, and blows out the breath. He nods. “They both went to the Circlet.”

“Riz, it’s my fault.”

“What?”

“Fabian got sent to get brainwashed—or whatever the fuck the Circlet does—because of me. He didn’t do anything. I didn’t follow orders; I refused to. And he volunteered to go in my place so, instead of dragging me away, they took him. And they stole his personality.”

Riz grimaces. “They did the same to Fig. She wouldn’t stop breaking rules so they—”

“But Fabian didn’t break any rules! He was doing what they said, mostly. So why did they take him?”

Riz rubs a hand across his face. “Could it be… maybe to make you feel guilty? So you’d stop breaking rules? They did that to me, too. I attac—”

“Wouldn’t it have just been easier to use the Circlet on me, then?” Adaine raises her voice, interrupting Riz. The words come flying from her mouth like she needs to say them or she’ll dissolve into dust. “That way I’m guaranteed to do what they want me to do. So why?”

“Huh,” Riz says, staring into the middle distance. “Maybe… maybe the Circlet isn’t as perfect as they want it to be. Maybe there’s side effects that they can’t risk using on the Oracle.”

Adaine’s eyes snap to his and her mouth falls open. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m valuable, then.”

Riz furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

“I mean, I knew it. We’re all here because we’re valuable to them but I must be especially valuable. They can’t Circlet me. Shit, that’s… Riz, if they need us in good, working condition, then, maybe—”

“Adaine…”

“Riz, I think we have more power than we think we do.” Adaine claps her hands together eagerly. “They need us. If I disrupt things, if I get myself out of good working condition, I’ll be the one holding the power. Or at the very least, I’ll be pissing them off.”

“The goal isn’t to piss them off, Adaine.”

“Then what is the goal?”

Riz sighs and looks down. He wants to say that the answer is to escape but he feels no closer to an escape plan than he was on day one. He wants to say that the answer is to survive but that won’t get them anywhere either.

“I don’t know.” Riz shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Riz climbs up onto the hospital bed. He lays back and prays he won’t be put into restraints today.

He still has nightmares about his first visit to The Doctor. He can’t shake the fear that consumes him when he remembers how vulnerable he felt when he was tied up like that at The Doctor’s mercy.

He doesn’t seem to have much mercy, after all.

Riz blows out a disappointed breath when he sees a guard approaching him with two pairs of handcuffs. “Fuck,” Riz mutters. His wrists are restrained, locked to the arms of the hospital bed.

At least his legs are left free, Riz thinks. Not that he has any better chance of escape or attack but, at the very least, he can curl up into a ball if need be. He doesn’t feel as vulnerable that way. He doesn’t feel like he’s spread out on a table like a meal for The Doctor today.

A half-elf with tan skin enters the room, pulling off a pair of disposable gloves and throwing them into a trash bin on the counter top.

“How are your physical symptoms?” He demands more than asks. He grabs a blood pressure cuff and wraps it tightly around Riz’s upper arm. Riz flinches at the feeling of his cold fingers.

“No symptoms,” Riz says quickly. The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “Nothing like that first day.”

“No more fever or sweating? No insomnia?”

Riz feels the tip of his finger get pricked by a needle. He looks down and sees a dot of blood pool before The Doctor wipes it away with a cotton swab. The swab is passed to a nurse who drops it into a specimen cup screws the lid tightly shut.

“The usual amount of insomnia. Especially, uh, considering things.”

The Doctor pauses and stares directly into Riz’s eyes. He wears a face mask covering the bottom half of his face so all Riz can see are his intense, black eyes, staring daggers into Riz’s own.

Riz doesn’t know how long he’s locked into this involuntary staring contest but, when he feels like The Doctor has swallowed every one of his secrets through just his gaze, Riz looks down at his hands, breaking the eye contact.

The Doctor sighs. “Not a single symptom?”

“I mean, the magic kind of hurts when I cast it,” Riz admits. “Like touching salt water when you have a cut on your fingers. It stings. Or maybe aches.”

The Doctor nods and gestures for a nurse to hand him the clipboard hanging on the wall. “Where?”

“What?”

“Where’s the stinging? Your fingertips?”

“No, uh,” Riz stammers, “I don’t know how to explain it. It aches like… inside me.”

“Where? Your chest? Your stomach?”

Riz hadn’t been intending to bring this up with The Doctor. He hadn’t even really made note of the strange pain until The Doctor pushed for more information. It was more like an itch he could ignore until his attention was brought to it. “Nowhere physically. It’s like it hurts my, I don’t know, soul or something.”

Riz feels his face flush. He feels stupid just saying those words but he doesn’t know how else to explain the strange sensation.

“I see.” The Doctor scribbles something down. “The Trainer reports that you’re growing stronger by the day. Do you agree with that analysis?”

“Yes,” Riz nods quickly. Even if he didn’t believe that, he would say it. There was no way he was going to disagree with a direct report from The Trainer. Her punishments are the worst of all because none of them have been on Riz himself. “Yes, sir,” he adds, uncertainly.

The Doctor tilts his head and narrows his eyes at Riz. “You won’t need another dose, then.”

Riz sighs in relief. He’ll get to go back to his cell and check on Adaine.

“Begin the infusion,” The Doctor says. Riz’s head snaps up and watches a nurse roll in an IV stand with a dark blue, effervescent fluid in its bag. The Doctor sweeps out of the room without another word.

“No, wait, he said I don’t need another dose,” Riz complains, squirming in his restraints. He gets the urge to claw his way free. “He says I don’t need it.”

The nurse, a halfling woman, smiles at him. “Don’t worry. This isn’t any more of the serum. Just a typical wellness concoction.”

“What does that mean? What’s in it?” Riz recognizes a carefully worded statement when he hears it. The nurse was avoiding saying something.

“You’ll feel a little pinch,” the nurse says, ignoring his question. She slips a needle into the skin on the back of his hand. Riz flinches at the stinging pain as the needle presses up against the thin bones of his hand. “There we go. All done.”

She checks the label of the IV fluid bag and smiles. Riz matches her eye line and reads the same words. CMPD 128 S. He couldn’t decode that even if he was clearheaded, and he’s not. He’s panicking.

“Please, what is it? What is it doing to me?”

The nurse purses her lips together. “It’s making you better. It’s all to make you better.”

Riz grimaces but as the liquid slowly moves through his veins, icy cold, he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a difference. The panic slowly leeches out of his body. He feels more awake, more eager. His brain starts to work faster, sharp focus coming easily to him.

He feels a change, certainly. And it’s not a bad one.

“Did you notice the water was hot today?” Riz remarks, fresh out of the shower, drying his hair with a towel.

“Really?” Adaine asks, raising an eyebrow. “It was ice cold for me.”

Riz frowns. “Huh.”

“They delivered a blanket and told me to put it on your cot, by the way,” Adaine says, pointing out the thick duvet that was sitting on the floor of their cell, near the door. “I didn’t feel like it.”

Riz chuckles. Adaine has been on strike ever since their conversation about the Bad Kids’ value in this equation, refusing to do a thing the guards tell her. He has to laugh because, if he doesn’t, he’ll start to worry, wondering why no punishment was coming her way. Since she moved into his cell, they hadn’t used her collar against her once. They hadn’t sent her to any training session, either. It’s been an eerily quiet few days.

For the past two days, Adaine has refused all of her meals which Riz is feeling a little more worried about. She seems fine, physically. Anyone can survive a day or two without food but she says that, eventually, The Sculptors will have to do something.

“Maybe they’ll bargain with me. Make some sort of offer of a privilege or freedom if I eat.”

“And if they don’t?”

“I don’t know, Riz. I have to try something. There’s so little we have control over right now. Let me do this. It’s all I can do.”

Riz had reluctantly dropped the issue and let Adaine make her choice to go on a hunger strike. It didn’t seem too risky to him. It might annoy The Sculptors but he doesn’t think there’ll be much of an impact on them, positively or negatively from it.

Like Adaine said, though, there’s only so much power that the Bad Kids wield right now. He’d be remiss to try to stop Adaine from exerting the control that she does have.

He scoops up the folded blanket from the ground and unfolds it, laying it over his cot. He frowns, double checking the corners of the blanket. “There’s only one.”

“Yes, they made it very clear that there wouldn’t be a blanket for me.”

“Why?”

Adaine raises an eyebrow.

“Ah,” Riz says. Riz has been following rules and Adaine hasn’t. He gets hot water in his showers and she doesn’t. At night, he’ll be warm under his blanket and she won’t be. “And if I give my blanket to you?”

Adaine shrugs. “I assume you’ll be shot and killed,” she deadpans.

A laugh bursts out of Riz’s chest and Adaine laughs, too, at her own joke. Then, they start laughing at their own laughter, a sort of shared mania that can only be reached when the idea of laughing at all seems foreign and strange.

“Having fun, my Foxhounds?” A voice rings out from outside their glass wall. A tall aasimar stands, wearing a white button down, black slacks, and shiny black oxfords. The Director, in another disguise, Riz assumes.

“We’re not having fun,” Adaine says, tightening her face and narrowing her eyes. “No part of this is fun.”

“Hmm, you’re not? Perhaps you would be more able to enjoy the little things in life if you were less hungry, Adaine.”

Riz swallows nervously. He’s scared to find out what the punishment for Adaine’s hunger strike will be. He’s been waiting for this shoe to drop and just seeing The Director is making his stomach sick. He wishes he had skipped breakfast today, too.

The Director’s face doesn’t betray any emotion. She seems oddly calm about her address to him and Adaine. “It’s alright if you’d like to skip eating, Adaine. I understand completely.”

Adaine lifts her chin up a fraction of a degree. “What’s the catch?”

“Hmm? Nothing that would be unfair, of course. I’m not here to hurt the six of you. In fact, I think you’ll appreciate this. If you think it’s such a good idea not to eat, then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if your fellow Foxhounds follow along with that good idea.”

Riz clasps his hands into fists, sharp claws biting into the flesh of his palm. “Director—”

“No, really,” The Director insists. “I’m not here to change Adaine’s mind. I don’t think anything I say could, to be quite honest. But, Adaine, I hope you can understand that the reason why your friends won’t be eating any longer is because of you and your choices. Do I make myself clear?”

“Fuck you,” Adaine says without blinking.

The Director smiles without her eyes. “You’ll come to understand, I’m sure. I’ll give you time to think about things. And, don’t worry, I’ll make sure to tell the others that they won’t be fed because of your obstinance specifically. I wonder how they’ll take that news.” She taps her hand on the glass twice. “It was good to see the two of you.”

She turns on her heel and walks down the bright hallway.

Riz drops to his cot and wraps his hands in the soft blanket, kneading at it nervously. “Adaine—”

“It’s okay,” she insists, barely looking at Riz. He’s not sure if she’s talking to him at all. “We’re too important. They can’t just starve us to death. They’ll pull their punches.” She sucks in a breath quickly, panic crossing her face. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” Riz admits. “I mean, not to death. But there’s… there’s a wide gap between well fed and total starvation. I’m not sure—” He’s not sure this will be a pleasant test of will power. And he’s not sure that he’s glad to be an involuntary part of it.

Riz reads his book. It turns out to be a fantasy novel about an academy that trains wyvernriders. He would never have chosen this book for himself in the outside world but, in a world so devoid of entertainment, it’s the best thing he’s ever read.

“And then the rider, Amelie, starts falling for the teaching assistant, Daimeon. It’s really cliché and predictable but the last quarter of the book is basically just their love story. It doesn’t stick the landing at all,” Riz tells Adaine. Before her strike began, the guards made it very clear that she was not allowed to read the book herself, as she hadn’t “earned” it. It was just another privilege that Riz was allotted that he couldn’t share with her.

He’s tucked under his thick, warm blanket as cold air is pumped into their cell. He’s grateful that he got to warm up in the shower this morning, at the very least, because the cell seems colder than usual.

“Sounds boring,” Adaine says, staring at the wall.

“Yeah, maybe. Better than watching paint dry, though,” Riz says. He flips back to the beginning of the book, intending to start over and read it for the fourth time.

It’s been two and a half days since The Director visited them to address Adaine’s hunger strike. Not a single other person has stopped by their cell since. Not to take them to training, not for their check-ups with The Doctor, not even a delivery from a guard.

Riz is glad he cracked open the book. He’d be dying of boredom otherwise.

And it was a good distraction from the hunger rumbling in his stomach.

“I’m going to tell them I’ll eat,” Adaine says, still not looking at Riz. “Next time a guard walks by. I’ll tell them I’ll eat.”

“You don’t have to do that, Adaine,” Riz says, ignoring the part of his brain that lights up eagerly at her words. He’s hungry. Not starving yet, but certainly uncomfortable. He’s gone a while without food in the outside world so he’s used to hunger. But he wonders how the others are faring.

“No, I do. I thought I could call their bluff but… But I just keep picturing Gorgug with his stomach growling. I keep picturing Kristen, gray in the face, too fatigued to be herself. I don’t want to starve my friends, Riz. I just—I just thought I could force their hand. But they’re forcing mine.” She sighs. “I’ll tell the next guard that I’ll eat.”

Riz nods guiltily. He wishes he could stand behind her and say, stay strong. We’ll be fine, stick to your guns, Adaine, but he’s just too hungry.

And he misses the routine. He hates The Doctor, isn’t an enormous fan of The Trainer, but at least his visits with them break up the monotony. He can only read his one book so many times before he goes crazy.

A guard marches past their cell without glancing in their direction. Adaine leaps to her feet and bangs on the glass with her fists. “Hey! Tell The Director I’ll eat. Tell her I’m done, okay?”

The guard doesn’t react.

“Shit,” Riz mutters. He has a bad feeling about how this is going to go.

“Her dad runs the school, right? The academy? So Amelie sort of got into the school because she was a nepo baby but, also, he’s twice as hard on her as he is on any other student. So she really struggles with her classes because of the weight of his expectations. Hence why she spends so much time with the teaching assistant.”

“I don’t care,” Adaine says, staring at the ceiling. She’s shivering. The cell is colder than ever.

Riz tucks his hands under his blanket to keep them warm. “I’m just trying to entertain you. You look bored.”

“I’m dying of boredom, Riz.” Her stomach growls. “But I don’t want to hear about your stupid romance book.”

“It’s not a romance, it’s a fantasy adventure novel,” Riz says quickly, defending himself. “I’m not just sitting here reading and re-reading a romance.”

Adaine rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

Riz’s ears perk up. “Guard,” he says, cueing Adaine to jump out of her bed.

She hammers her hands on the glass. “I’ll eat!” She shouts. “Please, I’ll eat. Please stop starving the others.”

The guard that marches past, like the previous dozen before them, does not react.

Riz has never seen so many guards pass their cell as he has in the past three days. Maybe they have and he’s just never noticed it before but he could swear that there’s more traffic than usual. Or maybe he’s just taking note of it because he’s so bored. He would kill for a training session right now. His skin itches with inaction.

“They’re not going to stop.”

Adaine whips around to face him with tears in her eyes. Riz flinches. “I know,” she hisses. “But I still have to try.”

“I know.” Riz admits.

He pulls out his book and begins it again.

“Please, please. I’m begging you, please! I’ll eat if you feed them again.”

Riz lies on his side in his cot, consumed by fatigue. Even something as simple as reading seems impossible.

It’s day four without food. He’s never gone this long without eating in his life and he wasn’t prepared for how it would make him feel. He’s snappy with Adaine, too irritable to be reasonable in their conversations. Moving his arms and legs takes twice as much effort as usual so he prefers not to move them at all but, when he does, they shake uncontrollably. And the last time he pushed himself to his feet to go to the bathroom, he nearly passed out. His body went limp and he let himself fall to the ground as his vision blacked out and his ears rang.

Getting water from the sink to drink is a nearly insurmountable challenge. Staying upright for long enough to take a few desperate sips takes everything out of him.

He’s desperate to eat. He doesn’t care anymore about this tense stand-off between Adaine and The Sculptors. He just wants food.

At the door to their cell, Adaine falls to her knees and sobs. With each exhale, she pleads with the guard that passes.

The guard looks to her.

They keep walking.

Adaine hangs her head and cries.

A guard opens the interlock in their cell wall and slides in a tray of food.

“For Adaine,” they say. They stand outside the cell with another tray in their hands. Riz eyes it hungrily.

Adaine leaps to her feet and slams her hand on the interlock, fumbling with the latch. She rips it open and pulls out the tray. “I’m eating,” she says, shoveling the food into her mouth. “Please, feed them, please.” She speaks with her mouth full, returning to the same pleas she’s repeated for four straight days.

Adaine frantically tries to swallow but coughs, spraying food on the glass wall. Riz flinches. She’s hurting herself trying to protect the others.

He just hopes it's enough.

The guard stands motionlessly as Adaine finishes every bite on her tray, begging the guard throughout. Finally, as she swallows the last sip of milk, the guard slides the next tray in through the interlock and nods at Riz.

Adaine looks at him with wide eyes, remnants of her meal, eaten without utensils, on her cheeks. She looks too scared to be relieved, as if this moment might be ripped out from under her feet. “Eat it,” she says, as the guard walks away. “You can eat.”

Riz holds his breath and nods, slowly getting to his feet. He ignores the way his vision turns gray in its corners and steps slowly and carefully towards the tray like it might get taken away from him if he moves too quickly. He opens the interlock, picks up the tray and immediately drops to the ground and eats his dinner on the floor like a dog.

By the end of the meal he looks up at Adaine who hasn’t looked away from him once since his food was delivered.

He smiles. “Thank you.”

Adaine nods tightly, a tear pooling in her eye. “I’m sorry I couldn’t fix things sooner.”

“It’s okay, Adaine.” Riz frowns. Adaine looks so submissive in a way that he hasn’t seen in her for years. She looks like she’ll comply with any command from The Sculptors without argument. Riz feels uneasy about the placid look in her eyes. He told her to behave before her strike but now, it’s hard for Riz to look at her and see on her face how clear it is that she’s given up.

He’s not sure which is better. A true-to-herself Adaine who’s getting herself and the other Bad Kids punished, or an afraid, obedient Adaine who is no longer herself at all.

At least with this version of Adaine, Riz doesn’t have to be hungry anymore.

“My shower was warm,” Adaine says. Riz looks up at her from his cot. Her hair is in a towel and she’s wearing training clothes.

“They’re letting you train, too?”

Adaine nods, lips pressed together. “Don’t know why they’d deliver this outfit otherwise,” she says, gesturing to her leggings and zip-up.

“Nice,” Riz says with a grin. “They brought us more books, too. For both of us this time.”

Adaine shifts him a few inches over so she can sit by his side. “What are we reading, then?”

He shows her the two options he’s been debating between. “This one’s another fantasy novel, I think. And then there’s an encyclopedia on crystals and their uses in magic.” Each book is thick, hard-covered, and intricately decorated with golden thread embroidery. He flips through the crystal encyclopedia idly. “You pick.”

Adaine leans up against the wall and plucks the novel out of his hands. “I’ll read to you,” she says.

Riz smiles. He fluffs out the blanket from the foot of his cot and lays it over both of them. The cell hasn’t been as cold lately but it’s a comforting weight over their legs regardless. He’s grateful that he has the blanket after all; he might as well use it.

The Sculptors didn’t have to give them any of these nice gifts. The books, the blanket, the warm showers. They didn’t have to make the Bad Kids’ lives comfortable when they were inside their cells, but they did.

Riz can, at the very least, be thankful for that.

Chapter Text

“'Daimeon, you know that we would never work. I’m too brash, you’re too nice. As much as I want—’”

“This is too much,” Adaine says, laughing and ducking her head into her hands. “We need to choose another book.”

“We can’t stop reading partway through!” Riz protests. “Don’t you want to know what’ll happen to Amelie?”

“Certainly not if it involves Daimeon!” Adaine counters. “He’s so gross. I mean, she’s his student, right?”

“He’s just a teacher’s assistant.”

Adaine raises an eyebrow.

“They’re both adults, Adaine. I mean, that’s certainly not the craziest thing happening at a university of wyvernriders, right? A little romance?”

“I don’t know how you can read this, Riz. I mean, it’s so over the top. And since when do you like romance?”

Riz kicks her, glad that they pushed their cots together so his foot can firmly connect with her hip. “I don’t like romance; I like adventure. If you’d let me finish the scene, you’d see that the room they’re in is about to be firebombed by the rival wyvern clan from across the Starbless Sea. Daimeon almost dies and—”

“Let me guess, Amelie nurses him back to health.”

Riz snaps the book shut. “Okay, we can read something else,” he says, admitting defeat. He rolls over and shuffles through the books he keeps under his cot. One of his pillows falls to the tile floor and Riz frowns, scooping it back up. He grabs two more books and offers them to Adaine. “You choose.”

She opens the first book, dark green and shimmering with golden thread, and flips through it. Riz sees pictures of fey creatures decorating the corners of the pages. It’s a fairytale, he remembers, from the day a guard dropped off their newest pile of books. He had settled onto the ground in the middle of the pile and flipped through every single book to take stock of what they had available to them.

It’s been a week or two since Adaine’s hunger strike. Riz doesn’t really remember, nor does he think it matters anymore. Keeping track of the days won’t change anything about their circumstances. All he knows is that this last week has been the best yet since they came to this facility. He and Adaine, when they’re not training, spend their days reading to each other.

The guards have started letting them make requests, everything from nonfiction tomes about the history of Solace to storybooks for children. Riz just likes having a wide variety of entertainment available to him. He hoards his books like a dragon hoards treasure, opting to keep them off the bookshelf and within arm’s reach. 

“I’ll read this one to you,” Adaine says, choosing the fairytale. “It’s called A Fey in Spring.”

Riz smiles and lays back down beside Adaine, getting comfortable.

“Once upon a time, there was a young eladrin girl named—”

“Riz, it’s time to move,” a guard says. Riz perks up with a start. He hadn’t even heard them coming. “Come with me.”

“The Trainer says I have today off,” he says, getting to his feet anyway. He pulls on his boots and tightly laces them. “Did the schedule change?”

“No training,” the guard says. “That’s a good book,” they nod at Adaine who’s holding the fairytale open to the first page. “My daughter has me read it to her every night.”

Riz frowns. “Where am I going? Does The Doctor need to see me?”

“It’s time for a new roommate.”

Riz’s stomach sinks. He sees Adaine jerk upright, posture erect. “No, I don’t want him to leave,” she says desperately. “Can’t we stay together?”

“Sorry, just following orders.”

Riz pulls Adaine into a hug. “We’ll see each other soon, okay?”

“You don’t know that,” Adaine whispers into his hair.

Riz pulls away and shakes his head sadly. “Not for sure but I have a good feeling.” He offers her a small, encouraging smile. “Soon, okay?”

“Okay.”

Riz gives a last longing look at the pile of books under his bed. “Will I—can I keep my books? Or are they Adaine’s now?”

He lets the guard lead him down the hallway. He’s not blindfolded or handcuffed today, which he’s happy about. The handcuffs always chafe his wrists.

“You want the books for your new room?”

“Well, I don’t want to take them away from Adaine. Can I get new ones?” He risks asking.

The guard hums under their breath. “Have you been following rules lately?”

“Every one.”

“Then I’ll get you some more books. Don’t worry about them.”

Riz smiles and lets the guard guide him down another hallway. He forgets to count steps today. He purses his lips. It’ll be okay, he thinks. Next time, he’ll try his best to pay better attention.

“Here we are,” the guard says, beginning to unlock a cell door. Riz’s smile grows into a wide grin as he sees Gorgug inside the cell. Riz bounces on the balls of his feet as he waits for the fingerprint and retina scans. “Be good,” they say, swinging the door open and pushing Riz through.

Riz jumps forward and leaps onto Gorgug, wrapping him into a hug. “Dude, it’s so good to see you.”

He hears the door click shut behind him.

“Riz?”

Riz lets Gorgug lower him to the ground and he unlatches his hands from around Gorgug’s neck. “Yeah, man. It’s really good to see you again. What has it been, uh… Huh, how long has it even been?”

“Thirty six days. Why don’t you know that?”

“What do you mean?” Riz looks around the room. There are two cots, each with a thin blanket on top, pushed against the wall. The bookshelf has a set of bibles on it, all labeled with different religions. One cot is made neatly, the other looks like someone rushed out of it in a hurry.

“You’re good at keeping track of stuff like that. Dates and numbers.”

“Oh, yeah, but, uh, it doesn’t really matter, right?”

Gorgug frowns. “Are you okay?”

Riz smiles easily. “I’m good, man. What about you? Have you bee—”

Gorgug speaks over him. “You’re being weird, dude. You seem, like, unaffected. I mean, fuck, you almost seem cheerful.”

Riz freezes up. “I’m not cheerful, I’m just glad to see you.”

Gorgug lowers his voice to a whisper. “Did they send you to the Circlet? I heard The Trainer talking to a guard about it. Is this what someone looks like when it’s been used on them?” He’s speaking about Riz like he’s not even there. Riz furrows his brow.

“Fuck no, you should see what the Circletted Bad Kids are like. It’s scary.”

“You’re scaring me,” Gorgug says voice still low. “I thought if anyone would still be clear headed, it’d be you, dude.”

“Why are we whispering?” Riz asks, trying not to think about the words Gorgug just said. Is he not clearheaded? Has he been compromised?

Gorgug looks at him like he’s crazy. “The audio recorders?”

“What?” Riz blurts out loudly. “Sorry,” he says, dropping back down to a whisper. “We’re being recorded?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Gorgug asks plainly. “Riz, you’re freaking me out, man. Why aren’t you thinking about stuff like this?”

Riz frowns. He should’ve realized that their cells could have the capabilities of capturing and recording what the Bad Kids were saying. He hadn’t even thought about it once. “I don’t know,” he flounders.

Gorgug guides Riz to the larger of the two cots and sits him down on it, patting him on the back. “They really got you, huh?”

Riz looks down at his hands in his lap. He doesn’t want to think that he’s been got. He doesn’t fall for psychological manipulations or clever tricks from their captors. He’s smarter than that. Isn’t he?

“I don’t know,” he repeats. Riz shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “Fuck. Did they?”

Gorgug nods. “They got Kristen, too. Fast. I think… I don’t like saying it but I think, because of her past, she’s hardwired to fall for indoctrination. She talks as much about ‘our mission’ as The Director does. It’s… it’s really scary to see her like that.”

Riz thinks about Kristen the day that he met her, spouting her religious doctrine that she believed in so whole-heartedly. She grew up being willfully shaped into the perfect chosen one. Was she so easily reshaped by The Sculptors?

Was he?

“Who have you seen so far? Is everyone else okay? The Director told us Adaine wasn’t eating.”

Riz catches Gorgug up as quickly as he can on who and what he’s seen so far. Gorgug keeps prompting him for more information about each roommate he’s had so far and how they seem to be holding up. He needles at Riz for every detail about his training sessions, as well as his physical upgrades. Gorgug is collecting information from him like a detective and Riz finds that it’s making him nervous and off-balance.

“But it’s not that bad anymore,” Riz finishes, after telling Gorgug about the hunger strike’s end. “We’ve actually been treated pretty well. I mean, we get hot showers and they keep giving us more comfortable bed clothes. And the books, oh man. I miss my books already but the guard says if I keep behaving, I can have more.”

Gorgug hisses a breath in through his teeth. “Listen to yourself, Riz.”

“What?”

“They’re bribing you to behave. They already tried the stick and it seems like it didn’t work perfectly but, damn, dude, they bring in the carrot and you’re just done? You’re convinced?”

“I’m not convinced of anything, Gorgug. I know that we’re still captives here. I know that The Sculptors have their own motives. But that doesn’t mean that we should do things to make our time here less comfortable. We might as well do what they say, for our own sake. Don’t you want books? Hot showers? Better meals? We’ve gotten dessert lately, man. Do you get dessert?”

Gorgug shakes his head and sighs. “Riz, I wish you could hear yourself right now.”

“Oh, come on. I’m not stupid so don’t act like I am. I’m making the intelligent choice here. I’m not Kristen; I’m not buying into their mission statement or whatever. And I’m not Fig or Fabian; I haven’t been brainwashed. I just know what the smart thing to do is.” He gets to his feet, pulling away from Gorgug’s heavy hand on his shoulder. “So that’s what I’m doing. You do what you want, just don’t get in my way.”

“Riz—”

“I’m taking a shower.”

He slams the bathroom door harder than he needs to. The resounding noise vibrates all the way to his heart. That’s the reason why his chest is aching, he’s sure.

“The other Foxhound is an enemy combatant. You’re in the field and you’re fighting for your life, alright? I don’t want to see any hesitance. I want to see blood.”

The Trainer, a gnome today, stares at Gorgug and narrows her eyes. Gorgug ducks his head, avoiding the gaze, opting to look at Riz instead.

“It’s not a fair fight,” Gorgug says, voice low.

“What was that?”

“It’s not a fair fight. I mean, he’s half my size. He doesn’t have his gun.” Gorgug spins the handle of the wooden axe in his hands, not overly sharp but not harmless either. “He doesn’t have a chance.”

“Never underestimate your opponent. Riz, show him what you’ve got.”

The Trainer blows her whistle and the lights in the room dim. Riz’s attention is pulled away from Gorgug to the single flickering light in the far corner of the gymnasium. He looks up at it and frowns.

“Eyes on your opponent!” The Trainer shouts. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Riz conjures a ball of fire between his hands, small and crackling with heat. He fights every instinct in his body that says not to hurt his friend and he overhands it at Gorgug.

Gorgug ducks out of the way easily.

“You’re telegraphing your movements,” The Trainer shouts. “Move faster.”

Riz nods and summons another ball of fire. He winds up as if he’s going to toss it again, then twists around and pitches it like a baseball, aiming for Gorgug’s lower body.

Gorgug tries to dodge out of the way again but this time it connects with his legs and sizzles through his training clothes. Riz cringes at the sound of his friend’s flesh melting.

“Fight back,” The Trainer shouts at Gorgug. Riz summons a ball of lightning this time, larger than the last. He holds it in between his palms though, and waits for Gorgug’s next move.

“I can’t,” Gorgug says.

He instantly collapses to the ground, body clenching and twitching with pain. Riz looks to The Trainer who’s holding a small silver remote in her hand.

Riz is silent as he watches Gorgug’s muscles shake and seize. He holds his lightning until it starts to burn his own skin. He curses and dismisses the arcane energy. He watches as Gorgug slowly recovers from his Power Word: Pain in utter silence. He groans as he gets back on his feet.

“Attack him like he’s trying to kill you,” The Trainer says, sounding as impatient as ever. “Now.”

Riz doesn’t wait to obey the instructions. He resummons the lightning that was waiting at his fingertips and transforms it into a long, arcing bolt of energy. It connects with Gorgug’s chest.

Gorgug takes a single step back, catching himself with a single foot planted into the mat.

“Fight me,” Riz whispers urgently.

“I can’t.”

Gorgug drops to the ground again like a puppet with its strings cut. Riz doesn’t have to look at The Trainer to know that her hand is on the remote again. He curses and waits for Gorgug to get back to his feet.

When they were taken from their cell this morning and told that today’s training time would be spent in a duo session, Riz thought it would be him and Gorgug fighting against some external force. Not against each other. He hates it, hates fighting his friend. Hates hurting a Bad Kid. But he has no other choice. He needs to do what he’s told.

Gorgug pushes himself back up to his feet with deep huffs of breath accompanying each movement.

“Attack,” The Trainer orders.

Riz leaps forward with his claws out, scratching at Gorgug’s chest. If he goes for a melee attack, maybe Gorgug will be forced to respond. Maybe then he’ll get in the fight and he won’t get in any more trouble.

Riz is unhappy to find out that Gorgug feels no urge to push Riz off or engage in combat at all. He just lets Riz carve deep lines into his clothes and his skin with sharp, elongated claws. “Gorgug, please,” he whispers.

“No more pleases,” The Trainer says, pressing the remote’s shiny silver button again. Riz stumbles backwards, trying to stay upright as Gorgug collapses out from under him, a pile of writhing limbs and hisses of pain. “You attack or you suffer. Make your choice.”

This time, when Gorgug pushes himself to his feet, he looks different. He looks fed up with his circumstances, anger leaking into his expression. He looks like he’s full of rage, a proper barbarian, and, for the first time, seeing that expression on his friend's face makes Riz afraid.

Riz tries to throw up a Shield before Gorgug’s axe can come swinging down on his head but his reaction time is too slow.

He squeezes his eyes shut and waits for the pain.

When it never comes, he opens his eyes cautiously and is met with the sight of Bytopia. Blue skies, tiny white daisies peppering the bright, green grass, and an outdoor office, desks scattered across the bucolic field.

“Kid?”

Riz turns a one-eighty and is elated to see his dad’s face as he comes running down a hill towards Riz. “Dad!”

“Gods, kid, where have you been? Your mom’s been worried sick about you. She’s been running herself ragged looking for you, Riz. What—what happened?” He pulls Riz into a tight hug, squeezing him into his chest. Riz’s eyes instantly water, overwhelmed with emotions. He melts into the embrace.

“Dad, I—” Riz suddenly feels the pull of a golden thread attached to his very soul that anchors him to the Material Plane. He feels the Revivify threaten to pull him out of Bytopia and away from his dad. “I need more time,” Riz begs.

His dad fumbles in his vest and pulls out a silver pocket watch. He taps the pushpiece on the side and Riz immediately feels the tugging at his soul abate. “We have more time now. Riz, tell me what’s going on.”

Riz has never heard his dad sound as deadly serious as he does in this moment. His voice is urgent, afraid, and humorless. “It’s a long story.”

His dad guides him to a picnic blanket laying out under a tall maple tree. Riz lets himself get pulled down to it and he sits uncomfortably upright, looking at his dad like he might get taken away from Riz again if he so much as blinks.

“Tell me,” his dad insists. “Gods, kid. I knew you weren’t dead but I’ve been so afraid that something terrible happened to you. Where have you been?”

Riz swallows. “We were kidnapped by, uh, The Sculptors. They call themselves that.” His dad presses his lips together. “Some sort of secret organization, I don’t really know much about them yet. But they took all six of us F—Bad Kids. And we’ve been, um, in captivity, I guess you’d call it.”

“Why did they take you?”

“To make us better.”

His dad takes Riz’s hand in his. “Riz—”

“No, I know. I know it sounds crazy. But it’s not so bad. I mean—”

“What’s around your throat?” His dad interrupts.

Riz swallows, hoping that the collar covers the nervous tic. “It’s a Counterspeller.”

“I know when you’re lying, kid. And why would they need to put a Counterspeller on you anyway?”

Riz conjures a single, flickering flame on the tip of his finger. “Guess who’s a sorcerer now?” Riz asks nervously. “It’s one of the ways they improved me.”

“Kid.”

“Did you—did you see my claws, yet? Cool, right?” He asks, dancing his fingers through the air. The titanium metal of his new fingernails catches the sunlight and reflects it through the air. “I’ve been being good so I’ve gotten a lot of upgrades. And other privileges and stuff.”

“Hey, Riz, look at me.”

Riz didn’t realize he started staring somewhere over his dad’s shoulder until he called it out. He quickly looks his dad in the eye.

“Ow, dad!” Riz shouts as a red laser pointer passes over his retina. He blinks hard, trying to see straight. He narrows his eyes and looks at his dad, holding a small device shaped like a ballpoint pen.

“No mind-altering effects present,” the pen says through a tiny speaker unit.

“What?” His dad mutters, tucking the pen back into his pocket. “Riz, kid,” he redirects, “you’ve been in captivity for six weeks?”

“Uh, more or less,” Riz says, thinking back to the look on Gorgug’s face when Riz didn’t know how many days it had been. He tries to do the math. “Almost six?”

“Damn, that’s fast,” his dad says under his breath. “They got him in six weeks.”

“Dad, it’s not… it’s not that bad.”

“What does the collar actually do?” His dad squeezes his hand so tightly that it hurts. Riz flinches and his dad loosens his grip. “Sorry.”

“It has, uh, two spells in it. Power Word: Stun and Power Word—”

“Pain,” his dad finishes. “That’s an effective deterrent. What else have they done? Group punishments? Solitary confinement? You don’t look medically neglected.” His eyes scan Riz up and down. “Some sort of psychological manipulation, obviously. Shit.” His voice drops to a whisper that Riz can only hear by benefit of being a goblin. “Is he going to be the same after he gets out?”

“Dad.”

“How do I get through to him?” The words are barely a breath.

“Dad, you’re… you’re being really intense right now.” Riz feels his hands shake.

His dad drops Riz’s hand and clenches his own into fists. “I just learned my kid is being reprogrammed by some assholes who call themselves ‘Sculptors.’ I think I deserve to be a little disturbed by that fact. Gods, Riz, your mom comes to my grave almost every day and sobs about how she might have to bury you next to me. I want to be able to tell her that our kid isn’t dead, isn’t going to die, but instead, even if I could talk to her, all I’d be able to say is that he’s losing himself. Or maybe that he already has.”

“Dad, I’m not—I haven’t lost myself. Maybe I didn’t describe things right. They’re not evil, The Sculptors. They want the best for Project Foxhound—that’s us—which means they would never hurt us.”

“Tell me again, what’s the second spell on those collars of yours?”

Riz grimaces. “Okay, well. They wouldn’t hurt us for no reason. We only get hurt if we don’t follow the rules. When we do, they treat us really, really well. I’ve had a really good week, dad.” He smiles, trying to make the lines on his dad’s face relax but they crease further at the sight of Riz’s smile. “I follow all the rules and I get rewarded for it.”

“Kid, you’re being manipulated.” His dad says, enunciating the word like Riz doesn’t know the meaning of it. “Expertly, if I’d have to guess, because I know my kid wouldn’t fall for anything else.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m still… I’m still me. And they value me too much to do anything too horrible to me. They wouldn’t. They’re g—”

“Riz, you’re dead.”

“Oh,” Riz laughs. “Oh, that wasn’t one of The Sculptors. That was Gorgug.”

His dad’s face pales. “What?”

“It was an accident.”

“They’re putting you in a position where you can accidentally kill each other. That doesn’t sound like they have your best interests at heart, Riz.”

“Dad, come on. If they didn’t care about us, they would’ve kept things the same as they were on those first few days.” Riz tries not to think about his first week. He doesn’t like remembering the feeling of the Power Words on him, nor the horrible sickness that the serum left him with, or even the fear he felt when he and Fabian were separated. Things have improved so much since then. It’s easier to forget. He shakes his head free of the thoughts. Besides, he’s a Gukgak, through and through, and that means he’s tough as nails.

Riz’s dad pulls him into a desperate hug. “Kid—”

“Think about it. I can feel the Revivify someone cast on me. That means they want me back.” Riz smiles again, smaller this time. “Isn’t that—that’s kind of them.”

“Kid, that’s not a kindness. That’s a sign that you hold more power over them than you think you do.”

Riz furrows his brow, face pressed against his dad’s shoulder. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

His dad pulls away urgently and looks Riz in the eyes. “Do you want to go back?”

“What?”

“Revivify only works on a willing target. Riz, it sounds like you’re being tortured. If you don’t want to go back, you don’t have to. You know that, right?”

Riz frowns. “Of course I want to go back. They—”

“Not because of The Sculptors. Do you have your own reasons to want to go back?”

Riz inhales slowly. He collects his thoughts in silence before exhaling deeply. “I can’t leave my friends alone. I can’t let Gorgug deal with the guilt of having killed me.” He closes his eyes and sighs.

He hangs his head, a heaviness suddenly blanketing him. An ache blooms in his head where the practice axe must’ve hit him. He thinks he’s running out of time in Bytopia.

“Dad, I have to go back.”

He looks up at his dad who looks intently into Riz’s eyes. “Listen to me. I need you to remember a few things. First, your opponents will always underestimate you but you need to never underestimate yourself.”

Riz nods. “Okay.”

“The second thing is that the Sculptors are not your friends or your allies. When your head feels fuzzy, try to remind yourself of that.”

“Dad, I—”

“And lastly, you’re doing this for your mom. Every move you make, make it for her, Riz, if you won’t make it for yourself. I know you think you can handle a lot, and you can, but every day that you submit to The Sculptors is another day that she’s left wondering what happened to her son. Please, kid, think about her.”

A tear springs to Riz’s eye. He pictures his mom sobbing over her husband's grave and measuring out the space next to it for the grave of her child. He pictures her having to stand up, once the sun has gone down, and carry herself back to an empty apartment.

He thinks of his mom and he feels his head clear.

“Okay,” he whispers to his dad. “I’ll, uh, try to remember all that.”

His dad throws his arms around Riz again. “You’ll get out of there, I promise. I know you can do it, kid.”

Riz hugs his dad back until the pull of the golden thread of a Revivify spell can’t be resisted any longer. He tries not to feel regret as it yanks him out of his dad's embrace.

The Trainer blows out a sigh of relief.

Riz catches his breath. Recovering from a Revivify is never pleasant. The dead want to stay dead and it takes a lot of arcane manhandling to put a soul back inside a body.

He takes note of The Trainer’s reaction. She’s relieved that he came back. Was she worried he wouldn’t? Is that because she cares whether he lives or dies? Or is it because he’s a valuable asset to her?

Adaine told him once that the Bad Kids have more power than they think. His dad said the same thing. The idea hangs in Riz’s head, distracting him, so he files it away for later.

“Good work, Gorgug,” The Trainer says. “Best two out of three.”

Riz is sure that Gorgug lets him win the next two rounds of combat but he plays along convincingly enough that The Trainer doesn’t use her remote for the rest of their session. He has a feeling she knows Gorgug isn’t going all out, too.

It was nice of her to not use Power Word: Pain on him for that. Riz’s dad didn’t understand. The Sculptors could be kind. And they often were.

The case in point, Riz thinks, is this moment.

Riz clasps Gorgug’s hand in his and shakes it, thanking him for a good match. Riz still sees guilt and fear in his eyes which means The Trainer can, too. She went easy on Gorgug today, after Riz died. That’s kind.

His dad doesn’t get it, that’s all. He doesn’t understand who the Sculptors are but Riz does.

“Nice work, kid,” The Trainer says as Riz is led out of the gym by a guard. “You’re doing a good job.”

Riz beams.

He holds those words in his head for the rest of the day. They push his dad’s final words to him to the side, shoving those three pieces of advice into the wings of his mind. Maybe he’ll come back to them later.

Or maybe it would be better if he just kept them very gently, neatly pushed aside. He has a feeling that would make things much easier for him. He doesn’t need to be constantly hearing the voice of his father telling him that his circumstances are so terrible.

He pushes the words of advice aside for now and revels in the warmth of The Trainer’s praise.

Riz pulls out a thick book with an orange spine and moves it to the bottom shelf. He steps back and admires the shelf.

It’s beautiful. Stocked full of books of all sorts of genres, colorful spines spelling out a rainbow. He keeps the tallest books clustered together, the books of a single series pressed up against one another, and spreads out the other colors for a more pleasing visual. Can’t have too many green books next to one another without it disturbing the aesthetic appeal of the shelf, he thinks, as he moves a thin, emerald hardcover.

“What do you think?” Riz asks.

“Looks good,” a guard says from behind Riz. He jumps and flips around. The guard chuckles and opens the door to their cell. “Gorgug, you’re coming with me.”

“Training?” Gorgug asks.

“More exciting. Congrats, man, you’re getting your serum.”

Riz’s ears perk up. “Oh, what’s he getting? What’s he gonna be?”

“Don’t know, man, sorry.” The guard shrugs and leads Gorgug out of the room and down the hall. “Take care of him when he’s back, though. You remember serum day.”

Riz nods seriously. He’s ready to be there for Gorgug. And he’s excited for his friend to get the serum, finally. The Trainer must have told The Director that he really went all out in the gym the other day. Gorgug is lucky that he’s being rewarded like this.

The two figures disappear down the hallway and Riz starts to turn back to his bookshelf before noticing something. He freezes, mid-turn.

The door to his cell is open.

Riz steps towards it slowly. He’s eight steps away. Now seven. He’s getting closer. It’s within arm’s reach.

There are no guards in sight.

Riz puts his hand on the door and feels the glass underneath his fingertips, cold and smooth. Riz drums his claws on it, deep in thought; the click-clack of his nails against the hard surface scratches an itch somewhere deep inside his head and focuses his thoughts

He takes a deep breath in and out.

Riz closes the door.

Chapter Text

The towels that Riz use to wipe sweat from Gorgug’s forehead and chest are ten times softer than the ones he used on Fabian so many days ago.

Everything in their cell seems a little softer, a little more comfortable. The last delivery from a guard even had a cushy rug, large and dark maroon in color. Riz had complained about cold feet and, the next day, he didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

He drops his hand by his side and looks around their cell. It no longer feels like a cell at all. More like a bedroom.

“Do you want me to read to you?” Riz asks, wanting to help Gorgug in some way. “Or do you want to try to get some sleep?”

“I don’t think I could sleep right now,” Gorgug groans, shifting uncomfortably in his cot. “Everything hurts.”

Riz nods. He remembers his serum day. “Okay, let me find something to read.”

Riz pushes himself to his feet and walks to the bathroom sink to run the water until it’s icy cold. He checks on the bookshelf while he waits.

“Nonfiction or fiction?”

Gorgug just groans in response. Riz nods and picks out a detective mystery written two hundred years ago. He read the first few pages when the book was first delivered to him and found the language a little hard to understand. But he’s curious as to how the mystery will unravel so he scoops up the book and returns to the sink.

He wets his towel and wrings it out, book tucked under his arm, and returns to Gorgug’s side. Riz rests the towel on his forehead and cracks open Philippa Odyssiea and The Garden Shadow.

He reads. “Phillippa Odyssiea was come to the garden, invitation in hand. Her countenance displayed determination and intrigue in equal measure.”

As he kneels by Gorgug’s bed, he curls his toes in the thick, shaggy rug. Maybe he’ll ask for some paintings on the walls next. They look a little bare to him.

“Riz!”

Kristen bounds into Riz’s room, a huge smile on her face. She scoops him up in a hug and spins in a circle, laughing.

Riz would expect to be dropped to the ground in a pile on top of her with a spin like this, Kristen’s patented terrible dexterity to blame. But she stays upright, even lifting Riz above her head before placing him back on his feet.

“Kristen, fuck, it’s good to see you.”

Now, seeing Kristen, a part of his heart that he didn’t realize was clenched finally relaxes. He knows where all his friends are. He’s seen them all with his own two eyes, even shared a bedroom with each of them.

“It’s been too long, man. A month? Come on. I can’t go that long without seeing my favorite little rogue.”

Riz frowns. “A month? That’s not right.” He’d correct her if he could but he’s not sure if he remembers the exact amount of time that's passed either.

She waves her hand. “However long, then. My point stands.”

“Yeah,” Riz admits. “Too long.”

Kristen walks around his room and whistles a low note. “Damn, man, look at this place.” She curls her toes in the rug. “You’ve got some books.”

Riz smiles and admires his bookshelf, stuffed full.  “The guards are really nice. They keep bringing anything I ask for.”

She nods and opens the door to the bathroom. “No tub?” She asks, poking her head in the small room.

“You have a tub?”

Kristen grins. “Earned it all on my own. Well, I mean, Fig, too. We’ve been killing it in training but I kept complaining about being sore so, boom, bathtub installed next time we got back in our room.”

Riz raises his eyebrows. “Wow. I want a tub.”

“Kill it in training, then,” Kristen jokes. Riz shoves her. He thought he had been killing it in training. He’ll have to work harder. “I even got a heating pad recently. I guess the guards could only hear me complaining about my cramps for so long.”

“Oh nice, we got ice cream when Adaine was feeling rough.”

“Aww, I want ice cream,” Kristen laments.

“Kill it in training, then,” Riz rebuts with a chuckle. Kristen lunges for him but he dodges away and jumps onto his cot, using the spring of the fabric to leap away from her. “Hey! No fighting!”

“I’m dexterous now, I could take you!”

Riz pauses. “Oh shit, really?”

“Yeah! The Doctor fixed me up. I can do flips now, dude. Gone are the days of tripping over my own feet. Just you wait until you see me in the field; I bet I could out-rogue you.”

“In your dreams, man,” Riz laughs, dropping to his cot. “What do you mean about the field, though?”

“The Director hasn’t talked to you about it yet?”

“Hmm?”

“About our field missions.”

Riz’s ears perk up. He’s instantly intrigued as to what sort of missions they’ll be sent on and how long it’ll be until they get sent on their first. He wants to ask Kristen a hundred questions, about her training, her other roommates, these field missions, but he settles on one question that, for some reason, crosses his mind and refuses to be pushed aside. It spills out of his mouth without prompting.

“Do you miss anyone from the outside world?” He cringes as soon as the words are free, floating across the room into Kristen’s ear.

Kristen furrows her brow. “What?”

“Sorry, I, uh, don’t know where that came from.” An image of his mom flashes by Riz’s mind and he dismisses it just as quickly as it appeared. “I was just wondering.”

“We have each other, Riz. That’s more than The Sculptors needed to give us, you know.”

“No, yeah, I know.” Riz nods, a strong up-and-down. “You’re right.” The more he thinks about it, the less he misses the outside world. He has everything he needs within these walls; he knows that to be true.

Kristen smiles wide. She drops next to Riz and throws an arm around him. “I’m so glad we’re roomies, dude. This is going to be so much fun.”

“Big day today,” the guard says as they open the door to Riz and Kristen’s room. “I’m not supposed to spoil the surprise but, well…”

“Tell us,” Riz insists. “Come on, dude.”

“We won’t tell,” Kristen adds.

“Oh man, you guys are too much.” The guard huffs. “All I’ll say is that you’ll be seeing some familiar faces.”

Riz’s face lights up. “No way.” He turns to Kristen and slaps her arm. “No fucking way.”

“Wait, what, are we seeing the others?” Kristen asks, excitement leaking into her voice. She drops to the ground and starts lacing up her shoes. Riz shakes his hands in the air.

“Are you serious?” He asks the guard.

The guard laughs. “I ain’t saying anything else,” they say. “Come on. Get up, let’s get moving.”

Riz kicks Kristen’s side lightly. “Come on, dude, we’ve got people to see!”

He practically skips down the hallway.

“Riz,” the guard warns as Riz walks too far ahead. “Stay close.”

“Sorry,” Riz says, jogging back to the guard’s side. “Are we going to the training room?”

The guard shrugs. “I already said too much, man. Don’t get me in trouble for spilling to you two.”

Kristen laughs, delight on her face. “We’re going to be training with the other Foxhounds. I know it.”

Riz's chest warms with anticipatory excitement.

“If you haven’t been told yet,” The Trainer says, voice booming in the sprawling gym, “you’ll be working together in the field. That means you need to be well-oiled and well-practiced at fighting as one unit. You need to be able to read each other’s movements, hell, read each other’s minds while you’re at it. You need—is anyone listening to me?”

Riz vaguely registers that The Trainer’s voice becomes harsh and even more impatient than usual. He snaps his head to her. “Sorry?”

“Can the six of you pay attention to what I’m saying? Or are you all going to stare into each other’s eyes for the next hour?”

Riz turns back to the other Foxhounds. He can’t look away. It’s been too long since he’s seen them. Fabian, he hasn’t seen since his first week in the facility. He’s changed, since then, primarily in the installation of a second eye on his face. Riz looks into that eye and smiles. He looks good. He looks complete.

“Alright. Take five,” The Trainer permits. “Get it out of your system, kids.”

Riz doesn’t wait. He runs across the gym to greet the others. He grasps Adaine’s hands in his. “I told you I’d see you soon,” he says with a huge grin.

She wraps him in a hug. Riz revels in the feeling of her arms tightly around him. He missed her. How many weeks has it been since they last saw each other?

And longer still since he’s seen Fig. Fig plucks Riz out of Adaine’s arms to wrap him in a hug of her own. “Riz!”

“Fig,” he replies, cheek squished against her shoulder. “Are you okay? Gods, it’s been forever.”

“More than okay,” Fig says, putting Riz down on his own feet. He sees the others mingling with each other like old times and his chest warms with the feeling of familiarity. “I’m having fun.”

“Honestly,” Riz admits, “I’m not having such a bad time either. You should see what I can do in the training room, Fig. Aguefort’s fighting teachers have nothing on The Trainer. The amount that I’ve learned in, what, six weeks?”

“Nine,” Gorgug adds quietly from next to Riz. Riz hadn’t even noticed him standing there until he spoke. “Nine weeks so far.”

“Sure,” Riz concedes. “You should see me.” He flashes his claws. And tilts his head up proudly. “I’m a killing machine.”

“I could take you,” Fig declares, playfully. Riz shoves her.

Fabian comes over and pats Riz on the shoulder. “The Ball.”

Riz wraps Fabian in a hug. “Dude. Your eye!”

“Yes, yes, I told them I haven’t been able to wink at anyone for two and a half years and they told me that simply wouldn’t do,” Fabian winks at Riz. Riz laughs. “And, you know, there’s a few bells and whistles in it, as well.”

Riz, if he really focuses, can see tiny lights forming concentric circles in Fabian’s eye, mechanical parts replacing the pupil and iris. He wonders what sort of tricks he has programmed into his new augmentation.

Riz’s claws are nice and all, he thinks, but he finds himself feeling a bit jealous. He wonders what other augmentations the Foxhounds will be granted through their training. “It’s awesome,” he says. “You look cool.”

Fabian winks again as if he’s making up for lost chances to do so. “Thanks, The Ball. You don’t look so bad, yourself.”

“Has everyone caught up, now?” The Trainer shouts, voice harsh. Riz turns to her, registering what he’s seeing for the first time today and notices that she’s disguised as a small, black-haired halfling with an athletic build. “Are you ready to pay attention?”

Riz straightens up, posture erect. “Ready, ma’am.”

“Thattaboy. The rest of you could learn a thing or two from Riz, you know,” The Trainer says, making Riz’s cheeks flush. “Now that I have you together, we’re going to get started. Your schedules will be changed in these upcoming weeks. Duos training will be replaced with the full party. You’ll all be a force to be reckoned with in no time at all, alright?”

Riz looks around at the others and smiles. He catches Adaine’s eye who looks nervous. He tilts his head at her questioningly. She puts on a smile that Riz can tell is fake and gestures with her chin back at The Trainer.

“Let’s get started. There are thirteen dummies hidden in this gym. Six are innocents. Seven are targets. Kill the targets with minimal damage to the innocents. Bonus points if no Foxhound blood is spilled but beware, the dummies are armed.”

To punctuate her point, two guns fire, coming from over her shoulders. Riz and Fabian dive to the side, the others drop in place.

“Go!”

Riz sprints for the climbing ropes in the corner of the room. He wants a birds-eye view of the gym so he can call out locations to his party. He scrambles up the rope, hand over hand, until he can see the entire gymnasium laid out below him.

“Two by the rear exit!”

“Got it,” Kristen replies. Riz watches her run south, dodging arrows and crossbow bolts with a dexterity he’s never seen her display before. She throws herself at the closest dummy, wrapping her legs around its body. With her body weight, she throws it to the ground. On her way back to her feet, she slams her heel into its face, cracking its skull plate with her foot.

The next dummy gets a faceful of Kristen’s thighs as she jumps up, wraps her legs around its head, and snaps its neck. It deanimates before it can even hit the ground. Riz raises his eyebrows. He, in a million years, never thought he would see Kristen display this kind of athleticism.

Riz turns his attention to the others who are jogging through the obstacles, looking for more targets. Riz scans over their heads, looking for orange paint smeared on the dummies’ heads. He spots one, inches away from Fig’s path as she stalks through the weight machines.

“Fig, left!”

She whips around, arms outstretched as if to cast a spell but, before she can, an arrow pierces her shoulder. Riz can hear her hiss a curse and she leaps for the dummy and pummels it with her fists. It goes down before it can fire another arrow.

“The Ball, watch out!”

Riz looks down at his rope and sees that a dummy just wheeled over and set it aflame. He can either let the rope burn until he falls to the ground from twenty feet up or race down it, landing directly in the lap of a combatant.

“Jump,” Adaine shouts. “I’ll catch you.”

Riz doesn’t wait. He tenses every muscle in his body, building as much momentum as possible, and kicks off the rope, leaping for the center of the gym.

Halfway to the ground in a fall that would surely shatter his legs, he feels the wings of a Feather Fall spell catch him and he floats gently down the last ten feet. Riz sighs in relief. The Trainer is right. They need to be able to read the battlefield and each other’s minds in combat to pull off moves like this one.

“Thanks,” Riz huffs and rolls out of his fall.

“Got one,” Gorgug yells from the north east corner of the gym. He hears the sound of an axe go through a dummy’s forehead.

Riz flips around and prepares to shoot the dummy that set his rope on fire. He closes his eyes, charges up a bolt of thunderous energy, and coalesces the magic between his hands. He thrusts his hands forward and opens his eyes as he casts the Shatter spell.

The moment plays out in slow motion. While his eyes were closed, Adaine must’ve stepped in front of him to prepare her own spell, aiming at the dummy. She’s standing directly in between him and his target.

The Shatter spell goes through Adaine to reach the dummy. The dummy fractures on impact.

So does Adaine’s left arm.

Riz can see shiny white bone emerging from her skin where the bone cracked in two.

Her scream is ear-splitting.

“Medical!” Riz shouts.

“Not until the last target is eliminated,” The Trainer replies, emotionless, over the loudspeaker.

Adaine falls to the ground, arm hanging limply by her side. The rest of her body is tensed up like Riz has never seen it before.

“Kristen, heal her,” Riz begs.

“The Counterspellers,” Kristen says through panting breaths, having sprinted across the gym to reach Adaine’s side. “They don’t allow healing magic to go through. Besides… a break like this?”

“Shouldn’t be healed magically,” Riz finishes. “Fuck.”

“Kill the last dummy,” Adaine says through clenched teeth. “Please,” she begs.

Riz doesn’t wait to hear her plea twice. He sprints for the west wall of the gym, the only place the Foxhounds haven’t combed through yet. His skin glows faintly with electricity, magic tickling as it moves through his veins. He tries to focus it into a charged up spell but he keeps watching the moment that he shattered Adaine’s arm replay over and over again in his head.

He did that. He hurt his friend.

He has to make up for it.

The magic under his skin covers him in static electricity. He wipes his hand down each arm, collecting the arcane energy and turning it into the component of the most powerful spell he can imagine. Something he’s never cast in training before. Something he’s ready to let loose.

As soon as he sees a dummy with a streak of orange paint across its forehead, he lets loose a Storm Sphere over its head. Rain, ice, and lightning pours down onto it. The air is electric and the dummy is dust by the time Riz finishes casting the spell.

He bares his teeth at the fragments left over, spitting mad at having no other outlet. He whips around, looking for another target but all he sees is a dummy with green paint across its face. He whips his hand out, seconds away from throwing another spell at its fragile body when Gorgug catches his arm and wrenches it to his side.

“Hey!”

“Cool off, Riz,” Gorgug says, voice low but insistent.

Riz hisses but lets Gorgug wrap an arm around him and guide him back to the center of the gym with the others.

“Good work, kids. It’s important to know that the mission comes first. You must always complete the mission, even if injuries do occur.”

Adaine nods tightly, tears leaking out of her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good girl. The rest of you, keep it up. Take a break, get some water, and we’ll run the simulation again.” The Trainer puts her finger to her ear and nods. “Adaine, The Doctor will see you now.”

“We’re running it without her?”

“Take a water break, Gorgug,” The Trainer insists. “We’ll get back to it in five.”

Kristen looks up from her toenails, in the process of painting them a dark green, iridescent shade. She presses her lips together and narrows her eyes, pointing to his claws. “Do you think I could paint those? Or would the, uh, polish not take to the metal?”

“Do you think she’s okay?”

“What?”

“Do you think Adaine’s going to be okay?”

Kristen chuckles, barely a breath. “Of course, dude. They’ll take care of her. Hell, she’s lucky. She’ll probably even get a day off while she recovers.”

A day. Riz chews the inside of his cheek. “You’re right.” He hums, flipping through his book without reading a word. “They’ll take care of her.”

He sighs and groans, pushing himself to his feet. Every part of his body is sore from today’s group training session. He slips the book back in its slot on the shelf and runs his finger along the spines of the other books.

“So, can I paint your claws?”

Riz laughs. “I’m gonna take a shower. Please don’t paint anything but your own nails while I’m in there.” He rubs his shoulder, trying to release some of the tension in his muscles and walks into the bathroom.

He sucks in a breath at what he sees.

For the next forty minutes, Riz relishes in the best bath of his life. He lays his head back on the bath pillow and takes long, slow breaths, letting the stressors of his day slip off his soapy skin and spiral down the drain.

He had fun today, in training, for a while. Calling the shots from the top of his rope, watching each of his friends work on their newly acquired skills, and getting to make a few kills of his own. It was good work that they did today. Only two innocent dummies were inadvertently injured. Those things happen.

And only one of the Foxhounds was hurt. It wasn’t the end of the world. They’ve all been hurt before and they’ll all be hurt again. It’s just a part of the job.

Riz just wishes he knew a little more about what the job was, precisely.

Riz is led into a quiet room in a wing of the facility that he’s never been brought to before. He lowers himself into a comfortable chair and is left alone in the room. Riz looks around eagerly, excited to have a change of scenery.

The room has painted navy walls, lined with white LED lights on the edges. The lights cast the room in a light blue glow, making Riz feel like he’s on one of the spaceships from the sci-fi novels he’s been reading.

He’s sitting at the end of a long, ovoid table with five other chairs around it. The chair furthest from him is more elegant than the others with a taller back. He has a feeling he knows who will be sitting in it.

Riz waits impatiently for that chair to be filled.

Finally, the door behind him reopens and in walks a tall elf with pale skin and bright blue eyes. She smiles warmly at Riz and walks around the table to the statuesque chair. She takes a seat in it and crosses her legs. “Hello, Riz.”

Riz leans forward. “Director,” he greets nervously. “Hello.”

The Director laughs lightly. “You can relax, Riz. You’re not in trouble. I wanted to talk to you about a few things.”

Riz breathes out a slow breath, following her suggestion to relax. “Why not visit while I’m in my room?”

“This is a bit more of a serious conversation,” The Director says. “I wanted to make sure that we had a private space to get through it.”

Riz nods. Kristen is a great roommate, he has to admit, but she can be loud and she doesn’t always know when it’s an appropriate time to jump in with her own thoughts. 

He misses his old roommates, certainly, but these past couple of weeks with Kristen have been, if he can venture to say it, fun. He’s had fun.

“Okay,” he nods. “That makes sense.”

The Director smiles, corners of her eyes barely crinkling. “I’ll hop straight into business, if you don’t mind. I want to tell you a little about Project Foxhound and your role in it. I’ll start from the very beginning.” The Director clicks a remote in her hand and Riz’s muscles tense up before realizing that she’s just turning on a projector in the room. He almost laughs at himself. Why would she be using his collar’s remote? He hasn’t done anything wrong.

Riz looks at the wall where, displayed in projected light, he sees a chart of the departments within the Council of Chosen. He sees the judicial, the legislative, and executive branches and recognizes some departments under each tree. The Ministry of Adventuring. The Solisian National Guard. The Juvenile Disciplinary Committee. The Upper Court of Law. But there are dozens of others that he doesn’t recognize. Aguefort Adventuring Academy certainly doesn’t offer a Solisian Government course for its students, after all.

Riz’s attention is brought to a highlighted box in the chart under the executive branch: the Ministry of Public Safety.

“I’m an employee of the Ministry of Public Safety, technically speaking. To get a little more specific,” she clicks her remote and a smaller box appears below the highlighted one, “the Department of Threat Prevention,” she says. “And to get even more specific,” another box appears on the projection, “Project Foxhound. We were founded when the Ministry of Public Safety tasked the Department of Threat Prevention with finding a way to eliminate threats to the government before they could be realized.

“The MPS gave us three hundred thousand gold and said that whatever we needed to do should be done. They told us that, as long as the job was done, we should feel unrestricted by things such as laws of the government or of man.”

“Laws of man?”

The Director smiles. “There are socially agreed upon definitions of ethics and morality. But the scientific field could be advanced so much faster if progress wasn’t so restricted by concerns about those factors. The other Sculptors and myself are all of the belief that pushing the boundaries is the best way to create something that no one has ever made before. In this case, you.

“The MPS was kind enough to stand aside while I founded Project Foxhound. I assured them that there could be no more effective Threat Prevention than the team that I planned to curate. They said that was all they needed to know. I recruited The Doctor and The Trainer and we began to plan.

“We worked backwards from what we wanted. An elite team of killers who could eliminate unrealized threats. How would we get that? Well, first, we needed clay to mold.” The Director gestures to him and Riz swallows. “I don’t mean that in a negative way, Riz. A lump of clay is the object with the most potential in the world. It can become anything. You and the other Foxhounds are brimming with potential. That’s why we chose you.”

“Thank you,” Riz says softly.

“You’re welcome, Riz.” The Director puts her hands on the table in front of her and clasps them together. “I’m so glad that we were able to find you. Then, the next step was to remake you.” Riz nods.

“My claws?” Riz asks.

“Your claws, your magic, your physical ability. Every part of you needed to be adjusted. And it has been. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Absolutely.” Riz matches her posture quickly. “I’m a better fighter now.”

“Amongst other improvements, yes, you are a better fighter now. Your time with The Trainer has been well spent. The others are improving too, quickly, but I’m especially impressed with you. You’ve done a wonderful job adjusting to your life here. The Trainer and The Doctor have both reported incredible things about your progress. I’ve noticed it myself, as well. You’re a different person now than you once were. I’m so proud to see the changes in you.”

Riz lets the corners of his mouth turn up in a small smile. “Thank you, Director.”

“That’s why we think you’re almost ready for field missions. There are targets on our list who need culling. There are rogue adventuring parties, every day, that are a scourge on our nation. They break laws, threaten lives, and cause rampant destruction to Solace. I told you on your first day here that some of those adventuring parties need pruning. That’s all I’m asking of you, the Foxhounds. There’s no need to worry about the who or why, just the how.  The minutiae of how targets are chosen or even how to find them is not something to concern yourself with. We’ll point you in the right direction. All we ask of you is the job done right.”

“You just want us to kill for you?”

“Not for me. For the nation as a whole. For Solace, Riz.”

Riz thinks of his father, an agent for the Solisian government. Would Riz be following in his footsteps by taking on this task for The Sculptors? Would he be making his mother proud, protecting their nation from those who threaten the wellbeing of its citizens?

Riz remembers The Director, on their first day, telling him a short version of this explanation of Project Foxhound and it seemed so outrageous at the time. Looking back, he doesn’t know why he saw it that way. With her explanation today, it seems much more reasonable. The government needs a way to eliminate threats. He and the other Foxhounds can be that tool in their belt.

It was a simple exchange. They’d be doing good work and all they had to do was what they did best.

Kill.

It was an open secret that adventurers at Aguefort Adventuring Academy were just trained killers. Killing for a different organization wouldn’t be such a significant upset to Riz’s life. It isn’t how he expected his senior year to go but he can’t seem to think of a reason why he shouldn’t do it.

Except…

“Why didn’t you just recruit us?”

“We did recruit you,” The Director replies, tilting her head a degree.

“No, you, uh, kidnapped us.”

“Ah, I see.” The lines around The Director’s eyes tighten. “I understand that it was a harsh transition from your old lives to this one. But we use methods that some may seem as extreme. We couldn’t take the risk that you would be unwilling to go through our training process. Before you knew what you were doing it all for, before you knew who you would become, you might not have been willing to submit yourself to the process, Riz. We had to take precautions.”

Riz chews on his lower lip. “That makes sense.”

The Director goes on. “I have more I’d love to discuss with you, Riz, in time. Today, I just wanted to tell you the reason why we do what we do. It’s for the good of Solace. We’re protecting those who can’t protect themselves. It won’t take much, just a few branches pruned, and our nation will be better off.” The Director pushes her chair back and gets to her feet. “We’re not asking for much, Riz.”

“Right,” he says, “of course.”

“I’m glad you’ve come to understand our point of view.”

Riz blinks and pushes himself to his feet. Does he understand it? Of course he does; why wouldn’t he? Everything she's saying makes sense. They'll be doing their duty as Solisians. He’ll be just like his father. Riz feels lucky, if anything, that he’s been chosen for this role. The Sculptors saw potential in him. That's an amazing feeling.

The Director offers him her hand to shake. Riz does, surprised by the invitation to touch her. His titanium claws brush the thin skin on the inside of her wrist.

Riz drops her hand and offers her a smile. “It was good to talk to you.”

“We’ll speak again soon, Riz. You’re becoming a very impressive Foxhound. I look forward to seeing you continue to improve.”

She sweeps out of the small conference room and is replaced by a guard.

“I like her,” Riz says distractedly as the guard walks him back to his room.

“She likes you,” the guard chuckles. “I’ve heard rumours that you’re her favorite.”

Riz can’t help the smile that grows on his face. “Really?” He asks.

“So I hear.”

With that knowledge, Riz tells himself that he’ll do whatever it takes to maintain that position in The Director’s eyes.

“Wow,” he whispers. “Wow.”

Chapter Text

Fig stands motionless in the center of the gym and closes her eyes. She breathes in slowly, then out. In again. Out.

Riz holds his breath.

No one was sure about using Fig as the bait for today’s round of dummies (she won’t sit still, she’ll jump the gun!) but, now that Riz sees her in the role, he’s forced to admit that it’s a good fit.

Her serum made her more level-headed and grounded. It made her patient in a way that Riz has never known her to be capable of. She told him, in their last group training session, that calm is the craziest sensation she’s ever felt. He laughed at the irony of her statement and told her she was lucky for such a useful serum.

She reminded Riz that he learned sorcery from his and that shut him up. He can’t lie and say that getting his serum wasn’t the coolest thing that’s ever happened to him. He literally has magic at his fingertips now, thanks to the Sculptors. Riz reminds himself to thank The Doctor for that gift on his next visit.

Fig continues to breathe her slow, deep breaths. Dummies creep out of the obstacle course, encroaching on her. They raise weapons as they roll towards her, animated by some form of arcanotech, but Fig doesn’t move. She doesn’t open her eyes as the footsteps get closer and closer to her body.

A moment before a dummy's axe would go through her skull, Fig’s eyes snap open and she stomps her foot on the ground, sending a shockwave of force through the ground around her. Half the dummies fall to the ground, stunned. The other half are fair game, Riz thinks, with a smile. He’s perched on the top of a jungle gym, under an Invisibility spell, holding his sniper rifle. It’s a new weapon for him, one he’s still understanding how to use. He misses his first shot and curses his way through the reloading process.

He misses his father’s arquebus.

No, don’t be silly, Riz. This is an upgrade in every way, he thinks. It’s quieter, more precise, more technologically advanced, and certainly more deadly. He just needs to learn how to use it properly. His magic is nice, of course, but, as the gunman, he’s the only one on the team who would be able to take out a target from eight hundred feet out. Just as soon as he can figure out this rifle.

His next shot explodes the skull of a dummy and he grins.

Fabian throws himself into the fray, appearing from a nook in the obstacle course. He tackles a dummy with his full bodyweight, throws it to the ground, and elbows it until its nose breaks. Another dummy grabs his body and tries to pick him up but Fabian isn’t a pushover. He’s still lithe and lean but he’s got brawn and power in his muscles, now, too, courtesy of his serum.

And he can certainly take a hit, Riz thinks, as two more dummies swarm Fabian and pepper him with punches and kicks. Riz takes out another with his rifle, giving Fabian a chance to breathe. Kristen flips over the mass of dummy corpses littering the center of the gym and propels herself off one, climbing him like a staircase and swinging down on another. They both fall to the ground but only Kristen stands back up.

Adaine’s own Invisibility spell dissolves as she wraps her new, metal hand around the throat of a dummy and squeezes. The dummy’s neck bends and creaks under the force of her grip. It falls to the ground dead but Adaine isn’t done yet. She winds up and lets her fist fly, metal connecting with another dummy’s chest. It flies back, slamming hard against a weight machine. It doesn’t stand back up. Riz is impressed to see her using her new arm so competently already. The Doctor took her compound fracture as an opportunity to offer her this upgrade, a fully cybernetic arm from shoulder to fingertip.

Even if it weren’t incredibly technologically advanced, which it certainly is, it looks sick as hell, Riz thinks. Seeing Adaine use it to its full potential alleviates any guilt he was left with after breaking her arm in the first place. There was no reason to feel guilty anymore. Adaine was made better because of his mistake. Another thing to thank the Sculptors for.

Fig closes her eyes again, channeling her ki. She twists her body down, kicking her leg straight up, beheading a dummy with her well-placed foot under its chin. With that kill, just one dummy remains.

Riz opens his mouth and breathes out, emptying his lungs. When the last bit of air leaves his body, he squeezes the trigger.

The dummy’s chest explodes.

Riz nods to himself, proudly, and leaps from the jungle gym. He casts Fly on himself midair and glides to the center of the gym to exchange high-fives with the other Foxhounds.

“Damn, Adaine,” Riz remarks. “You’re already killing it with—”

“—your cyborg arm,” Fig finishes.

“I’m not a cyborg!” Adaine protests. “I’m still a person; I just happen to have a metal arm now.”

“It looks so fucking cool,” Kristen says, reaching out to touch the fingertips. Adaine holds them out and wiggles them for her to admire. “Wow.”

Adaine smiles shyly. “Thanks. I was afraid I would look scary.”

“You do,” Fabian says. “In a good way. You look like a Foxhound.”

Riz smiles.

“Hey, where’s Gorgug?” Fig asks.

Gorgug emerges from the maze of obstacles to the center clearing. “I’m here.”

“You good, dude?” Riz asks.

“Oh, yeah. Just wanted to skip this fight.” He shrugs. “Found a guard and asked him very nicely to let me sit it out.”

Fabian chuckles. “Wow, Mister Charm. Won’t The Trainer be mad?”

“I’m using my serum,” Gorgug says. “Putting this newfound charisma to use.”

“By convincing guards to let you do what you want?”

“Yeah,” Gorgug ducks his head. “What else am I going to do with it?”

“Good work, Foxhounds.” The Trainer calls out as she enters the clearing. She looks as pleased as Riz has ever seen her. It’s strange; he’s so used to a permanent impatience painted on her face. This was a pleasant change. “You’re all using your serums. You’re performing competently in these group training sessions. I’m impressed.”

Riz beams. “Thank you, Trainer.”

The Trainer nods. “You’ll all be getting some good news soon.” She clicks a button on her remote and the Counterspellers embedded in the Foxhound’s collars hum back to life. “But off to bed for now. Except you, Riz. The Doctor would like to see you.”

Riz’s ears perk straight up. “Wha—why? Did I do something?”

“Guards, take the rest of them home. I’ll take Riz to The Doctor myself.”

Riz’s face burns with nervous energy. He’s gone through stages with The Doctor. First, he hated him, then he was afraid of him. He wouldn’t say he’s terrified any longer but The Doctor certainly still makes him nervous. There’s something about the way he holds himself and the way he looks at Riz that makes Riz’s knees shake, even though he knows that The Doctor is only looking out for Riz’s best interests.

He gave Riz his serum, after all. And the infusions that make him feel better in every way. He even gave Riz the new weapons at the tip of his fingers. Riz knows that The Doctor is here to help Riz.

But he’d be lying if he said that he felt no fear in his presence.

“You’ll be receiving another upgrade today, Riz,” The Doctor, a light blue dragonborn, today, says. His eyes are reptilian but somehow still hold the usual piercing, intense gaze that’s omnipresent on his face. “We’re very pleased with your progress but we think we can do even better.”

“What kind of upgrade?”

“I’ve designed an evolution of the serum you received three months ago. It will make you an even more proficient spellcaster. Now, because of our timeline, there was not as much time to perfect the formula, however I feel very confident that it will have an incredible effect on your physiology. There may be some minor side effects, though, and the immediate physical reaction might be a bit more extreme as compared to your first dose.”

Riz remembers how miserable he felt after he received the serum in his first week at the facility. He was entirely out of commission for a couple of days, barely able to drag himself to the bathroom. Wrenching himself upright to take a few sips of water felt near impossible. He doesn’t want to experience that again, let alone something worse.

“Isn’t there time for more testing?” Riz ventures to ask. “Maybe if you kept working on it, you could find a way to eliminate the, uh, suffering part of the process.”

The Doctor’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Do you think, Riz, that it’s easy to create a formula like this one? To inject pure magic into someone’s blood? If it were easy, everyone would have this tool in their arsenal. I am the only person in the realm capable of designing this serum. I know what can and can’t be done with it. And in this case, Foxhound, your comfort isn’t the highest priority.

“We all must make sacrifices for the cause and a few days of discomfort is a drop in the bucket. If you’re unable to handle that, then I’m not sure that you’re fit to be a part of this project at all. Tell me, are you strong enough?”

Riz nods, an apology in his eyes. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Your body will be adjusting to a colossal amount of pure arcane energy. The few days of downtime required are just a part of that process. It’s not much to ask from you. A few days of minor illness for a lifetime of magic. Not much to ask at all.”

Riz would protest that the illness triggered by the serum was nowhere near minor but he knows it’s not his place to speak up. Instead, he nods. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then let’s get started.”

Riz drops his head to the hospital bed and stares up at the ceiling. He’s unrestrained for the first time in this hospital room so he’s free to tense up his muscles as he anticipates the searing pain that accompanies the serum’s injection.

He almost asks to be put to sleep for this part of the process. Maybe he could be allowed to sleep off the worst of the pain and discomfort.

But he’s a Foxhound, through and through, and that means he’s tough as nails. He can handle it. He can push through pain for the sake of the mission.

And when he comes out on the other side, he’ll be the strongest he’s ever been. Riz lets the corners of his mouth turn up in a slight smile, anticipating the sort of magic that he’ll be able to cast soon enough.

When the injection begins, Riz doesn’t scream even though he wants to.

He grits his teeth and reminds himself how fortunate he is.

Three days later, Riz’s awareness returns to him in full. The previous few days and nights have been nothing but a blur of pain, nausea, and nightmares. It was ten times worse than his first dose of serum which felt more like an extreme version of the flu. This dose had him convinced that he was on the precipice of death for seventy-two straight hours. He doesn’t know if the words came out coherently but he remembers begging to fall one way or the other. Life or death, life or death, he found that he didn’t mind either way. He just needed to find solid ground.

When he finally opens his eyes and his vision is no longer cloudy and gray, he finds that Kristen is no longer the one in the cot opposite his.

“Hey, The Ball. You with me?”

Riz blinks twice, wide-eyed. “Fabian?”

“The one and only.”

Riz studies his new eye, almost indistinguishable from his biological one. It’s strange seeing his best friend with two eyes. It’s been years since Fabian looked like this.

It makes him look younger than his eighteen years.

Nineteen?

“How old are you?” Riz asks.

Fabian laughs. “That’s your first coherent thought? I’m nineteen, The Ball.”

“I don’t remember your nineteenth birthday.”

Fabian shrugs. “Happened while we were in here. Early on. Couldn’t throw a party.”

Riz frowns. “We should throw a party.”

“If we do, it’ll have to be for you and Gorgug, too.”

Riz’s ears perk up halfway. “Oh yeah, huh. It’s past October?” Fabian nods. “Happy birthday to me,” he whispers.

“Sorry I didn’t get you anything,” Fabian says with a smirk. “Next year.”

“Why are you here?” Riz says, mind catching up with his surroundings. “Where’s Kristen?”

Fabian pushes himself to his feet and grabs the water cup sitting next to Riz’s bed. He walks to the bathroom sink and fills it with water from the cold tap. “I think she got moved to Adaine’s room. We’ve been assigned our permanent partners, according to The Director. You don’t remember her visiting and talking to us about it?”

Riz shakes his head and accepts the cup of water. He chugs half of it in two huge gulps. “What’d she say?”

“Just that they did some analysis on how we all worked with each other and found the best duos within our team. I told her there was no way that my ‘best fit’ was a nerd like you but—”

Riz shoves Fabian who lets himself tip over and fall on the rug next to Riz’s cot. “Shut up, dude,” Riz laughs. Fabian laughs too, pleased with himself.

“No, really, I told her no way, ma’am.”

“As if.” Riz finishes his glass of water. “What’s next, anyway?”

“You really don’t remember? Gods, they really shouldn’t make important announcements when some of us are in dreamland.”

“It’s not my fault, man. It’s the serum.”

“Oh, don’t complain. You’re the only one of us who got a bonus dose. You’re not allowed to whine about it. I’m already jealous enough as it is.”

“What did she say?” Riz asks, ignoring the pride that warms his chest from knowing that he’s getting special treatment. He’s always craved the approval of authority figures in his life. His parents, his teachers, the other adults around him. He wants them to like him. And here, in the facility, it seems like they do. They see Riz’s hard work and they appreciate it.

And they reward him for it.

It feels incredible.

“We’re going on our first field mission.”

Riz’s face explodes into a grin. “Really?”

“That’s right. All six of us.” Fabian grins back at him. “There’s a group of adventurers—I think they call themselves the Core Four—that have been needling at some of the more delicate departments of the Solisian government. Our job is to get involved.”

“Kill them?”

“Of course.”

“Easy,” Riz says, smirking. “Hells, I could take four on my own.”

“Oh, does The Ball think he’s a big man now?” Fabian laughs. “Maybe I could take four, but little ol’ you?”

Riz kicks at Fabian lazily. “Shut up. I could.”

Fabian shrugs. “I don’t think our first mission is your chance to prove that. Maybe our second.”

Riz nods and lays back in his cot. He doesn’t think he’s wrong. Now that he focuses, he can feel arcane energy thrumming under his skin, pressing up against the barrier of it as if it’s itching to come out. He feels like it would take more effort not to cast a spell than to bring one to life. He can feel the shapes of spells calling to him to be made real.

The power he feels is unimaginable. It’s a remarkable amount of magic in his blood, so much more than there was before.

His fingertips tingle with potential energy.

They almost burn.

Riz straps on his tactical vest, heavy with ammo, grenades, and medical supplies. He tucks a dagger into the holster on his belt, knowing he’ll have no use for it. His claws are sharp enough to do the job if he gets into melee range. He picks up the case filled with his sniper rifle—too bulky and heavy for his taste—and wraps a scarf around his throat, covering the collar.

Riz taps his temple twice, activating the nanomask that covers his face. The arcanotech device is a thin film over his skin and it instantly transforms him.

“Who am I?” Riz asks Fabian. He hasn’t looked in a mirror since making it to the facility but he’s curious as to what the nanomask has done to him. “Halfling?”

“Hmm, bigger nose than a halfling. Gnome, I think,” Fabian replies. “You look weird without your ears.”

Riz puts his hands on the sides of his head. His ears are still there, in reality, but anyone looking at him wouldn’t see him as a goblin. No one could recognize him or pick him out of a lineup.

Fabian taps his temple twice and transforms into a winter eladrin. His skin turns pale with a hint of blue around his eyes and ears. His hair grows long and cerulean.

“Oh, wow.”

“Do I look good?” Fabian asks with a smirk.

“You look cool. Damn, this is some insane illusory work,” Riz remarks.

He watches as the others in the armory activate their disguises, transforming into a human, elf, githyanki, and half-goliath. Suddenly, Riz is surrounded by strangers.

He sits down on a bench and grabs his tactical boots. He tucks his thick, black cargo pants into each boot and laces them up tightly. With two secure knots in place, he lets Fabian pull him to his feet.

Fabian’s wearing a bulletproof vest, bursting with satchels for additional gear. He carries a sword, though it seems strange seeing him without Fandrangor.

Riz is similarly lacking his Sword of Shadows. He doesn’t miss his magic items, not with his active mind anyway, but his hands twitch, reaching for a sword that isn’t there. Kristen carries her wand instead of the bulky staff that she was liberated from, and a flute is in Fig’s hands instead of her guitar.

They’re not the same team that they were when they entered the Project Foxhound facility. They’ve been remade, Riz thinks, just as The Director had promised.

They’re elite operatives and they’re ready to do their jobs.

Riz stands over four corpses and smiles. The wizard has four straight, deep lacerations that ripped straight through her clothes, carving her open from sternum to belly button. The blood still leaks out, even after her death.

He shakes his hand, spraying blood from the tips of his claws on the forest floor. His claws served him well in this fight.

He never had time to set up his sniper rifle at all, the Core Four having taken notice of the Foxhounds’ approach. The fight broke out, instantly deadly, as Adaine cast Cloud of Daggers directly over the Core Four’s sleeping bags. They couldn’t even get to their feet without slicing themselves to pieces.

Fig laughed at the ranger who tried to crawl out of range of the spell, resulting in their back being torn to ribbons. With a handful of notes from Fig’s flute, the ranger’s body came to a bloody stop.

The wizard got on Riz’s nerves by Dispelling the Cloud of Daggers so he let loose on her. His thin, sharp claws were all he needed to get the job done. He dropped his rifle case on the ground and turned to the barbarian and druid, eyes narrowing in a challenge.

Riz channeled magic through his body and angry, black lightning arced off his skin. He paused, alarmed and excited by the sight. Was this a side effect of the serum? Magic so powerful that it couldn’t stay under his skin?

He certainly felt powerful. He let the magic build and build as the druid and barbarian began to run. His skin burned with electricity. He was greedy, building and building, preparing a powerful spell but, before he could cast it, Fabian and Gorgug swept in from the trees and knocked down the remaining Core Four with sweeps of their legs.

It was a choreographed technique that they had practiced a dozen times in the training room, something used to keep targets from running away and alerting anyone else to the Foxhound’s presence. The Director had emphasized that these field missions needed to be quiet above all else.

Well, Riz could do quiet. He tried to dismiss the arcane energy that surrounded him but the lightning didn’t abate entirely, it only softened slightly. He frowned as he jogged up on the fallen adventurers. He didn’t understand what’s going on with his magic but that was a worry for another time.

From his belt, he pulled a pistol, silencer already installed on its barrel, and finished the druid with a headshot.

Kristen kneeled down and pinned the barbarian’s wrists to the ground. “Who wants to do the honors?” she asked.

Fabian slit his throat with his sword before anyone else could claim the kill.

It was a job well done.

Four kills, no witnesses, and not even a papercut on any of the Foxhounds.

Riz smiles. He thinks that the six of them did Project Foxhound very, very proud.

“Riz, please, take a seat.”

The Director is waiting for Riz in the conference room today. He smiles, glad to see her. Today, she’s a water genasi with lightly scaled, seafoam skin. She sits tall and proud and greets him with a smile, as well.

“Director,” Riz says. “What can I do for you?”

He sits and interlocks his fingers, resting his hands on the table in front of him. The room still glows icy blue, walls painted a shade of navy so dark it’s almost black. The LED light strips cast harsh light on The Director’s face, severe shadows under her cheekbones.

“I’m glad to hear you so eager but really, today is about what I can do for you. I’m here to offer you something that I hope you’ll accept.”

Riz’s ears perk up excitedly. He’s had a wealth of kindnesses poured upon him by The Sculptors recently but he will never say no to more. “I’m listening,” he says eagerly.

“The Doctor has reported an incredible response to his infusions. The Trainer tells me, after every session, how fast you’re improving. Your fellow teammates have nothing but glowing things to say about you. And I, myself, have seen all of that and more in you. You’re quick on your feet, clever as can be, and the hardest worker in the Foxhounds. I see you fighting every day to make yourself a stronger agent. This work that you’re putting in, Riz, isn’t being missed.”

Riz smiles proudly. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“I’m only reporting the truth, Riz. You’re at the top of the Foxhounds in every way. The other Sculptors and I are impressed. So impressed that we’d like to offer you the position of team leader of the Foxhounds.”

Riz’s mouth drops open. “Team leader?”

“Yes, a team leader. In the field, it’s important to have someone who is in charge of making calls that the other team members can’t. An operative who can see things that the others cannot. A voice to cue an initiation or declare a retreat. And, above all else, someone who the others can look up to as an example of the high level of expertise that we expect from all of our Foxhounds. Riz, I believe you are that team leader.”

“Oh,” Riz says, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

“I do,” The Director asserts. “If you don’t have confidence in yourself, you can at least trust in my judgement. Have I given you any reason to doubt me?”

Riz hesitates. Seeing the outside world today triggered some thoughts that he’s been contending with. It was instantaneous upon taking in his first lungful of fresh air. He was slapped in the face with memories of his life on the outside. Going to class. Stopping by the library on the way home. Cooking himself dinner and making a pot of coffee to go with it. “Director, why can’t we be Foxhounds and have our lives in the outside world?”

The Director pauses and presses her lips together. Her eyes tighten ever-so-slightly. “The world is filled with distractions, Riz. Outside of the facility, you are burdened with responsibilities that, here, we are eager to take off your hands. Without spending any time or energy on things like school, work, or unimportant relationships, you are free to focus on being a Foxhound. That’s what we’re offering you. A chance to be unburdened from the encumbrance of day-to-day life.”

Riz nods and chews the inside of his cheek, looking at the table in front of him. “That makes sense.”

The Director tilts her head to the side. “Riz, are you unhappy with this arrangement?”

“No,” Riz states quickly. “Not at all. I was just wondering, I guess. But you answered my question. I agree; we’re better off without distractions.”

“If you’re unhappy, you can always come to me and we can discuss things. I hope you know that. Your comfort and wellbeing are paramount to the project, as well as being deeply important to me personally.” She softens her eyes and sighs deeply. “You trust me, don’t you, Riz? You trust that I’m looking out for your best interests?”

“Of course I do,” Riz says confidently. “It took me a while to understand but I do now, Director.”

“Wonderful. In that case, can I rely on you to step up to the plate and take on the position of team leader?

“Yes, ma’am,” Riz says, letting a smile stretch across his face from ear to ear. “You can rely on me.”

“That’s terrific news, Riz.” She leans forward in her chair “Let’s discuss the details.”

The next evening, Riz and Fabian are taken, together, to another conference room. Instead of just blue, this one is lit up in every color of the rainbow. Sitting around the table are the other Foxhounds, smiling easily.

Kristen laughs as she tries to strap a party hat onto Fig’s head without catching the elastic on her horns. Adaine is putting paper plates at each seat of the table. Gorgug looks side to side before peeking into a dark purple gift bag, fingers slowly peeling the tissue paper aside.

“Woah,” Riz gasps as he enters and sees a wide banner over the table that reads, HAPPY BIRTHDAY. “Whose birthday is it?”

The other Foxhounds look up and greet Riz and Fabian with smiles. Adaine pulls out their chairs and finishes laying out a fork and napkin at each placemat.

“All of ours,” Kristen says. “The Sculptors said we killed it on the mission yesterday—”

“Not quite their words,” Adaine interrupts.

“—and that they were sorry we missed a few birthdays.”

“But they got gifts for all of us!” Fig says waving a golden gift bag at Fabian and handing Riz an orange one. A red one rests at her seat of the table. “How sick is that?”

Adaine slaps Gorgug’s hand as it dives into his bag. “Stop it,” she says. “Cake first.”

“Aw,” Gorgug moans.

Riz looks to the center of the table where a small, round cake frosted with white frosting and drenched in rainbow sprinkles sits. It looks just big enough for six wide slices. He feels his heart warm in his chest. The Sculptors were, once again, going above and beyond for their Foxhounds. Not one of them asked for this impromptu birthday party but they were given it all the same.

Riz doesn’t stop smiling for the rest of the night.

Tissue paper is ripped and gift bags are tossed aside as each of the Foxhounds tear into their present. Riz slips two silver rings onto his fingers and his skin glows with a Mirror Image. He spins them each counter-clockwise, dissolving the illusion. He feels right with rings on his fingers like this. It was a small detail for The Sculptors to pay attention to but Riz would never doubt their ability to notice the little things.

The others play with their gifts, passing around Fig’s new flute, Kristen’s leather anklet, and Fabian’s golden pendant. Gorgug shrugs off his training shirt and puts on his new under-armor. Adaine pins her hair back with two enchanted, diamond hair clips.

“Happy birthday, everyone,” Riz says.

Gorgug puts a hand on Riz’s shoulder. “Happy birthday, man.”

Riz looks appreciatively around the room, taking in the multicolored lights, the bright and bold banner, the half-eaten cake, and the gift wrap sprawled across the table. He can’t help but be warmed by this evening spent surrounded by so much affection. He’s so grateful for it, he couldn’t even put it into words.

He smiles softly.

“I think it’s going to be a really good year.”

Chapter Text

Riz shoots out the security camera that points down this alley, the gunshot cueing his teammates to engage.

Kristen slides on her knees towards the target and rips their legs out from under them. The target falls to the ground, supine. Adaine takes the opportunity to cast Hold Person, locking them in place.

It’s embarrassingly easy to make the kill at that point. Fig laughs.

“Cake walk!” She calls out. Riz shushes her but laughs. He can’t disagree with that.

“Ugh, I skinned my knee with that move,” Kristen complains.

Fabian pats her on the shoulder. “You looked cool doing it and that’s what’s really important.”

The comms are filled with laughter.

Two weeks later, they’re back on the streets of Bastion City, cloaked under Greater Invisibility spells.

“In three, two, one,” Riz whispers into his comms.

An Eldritch Blast, three Magic Missiles, and a shot from a pistol ring out at once, shattering every camera on the block.

Citizens on the street—those still out past 3:00 AM—begin to murmur, panic growing.

They don’t need to worry, though, Riz thinks. No one needs to worry about the Foxhounds unless they’re a rogue adventurer. And, as for those rogue adventurers, well, they won’t have to worry for very long. Their deaths are clean, quiet, and efficient.

This lone adventurer’s neck is snapped by Kristen before he knows that anyone is coming for them. The Foxhounds disappear without ever being seen.

A month later, the Foxhounds find themselves in a desert. Riz never knows where they’ll be dropped off for their latest field missions but a desert is certainly a new locale. He laments the lack of cover available.

“Have fun with this one,” The Director had told him. “Do a perimeter sweep for witnesses and, if the coast is clear, give the team permission to cut loose, Riz.”

Riz grins when he gives that command to the other Foxhounds.

“Cut loose?” Fabian asks. “Send help; The Ball has been replaced with a doppelganger.”

Riz laughs into his comm. “Shut up and have fun, already. Make it flashy. Who knows when we’ll get this chance again. And please use our codenames.”

Fig doesn’t wait to hear it twice before blowing the loudest, screechiest note that Riz has ever heard from her flute. If asked, he would swear that he took psychic damage from it. The rogue adventuring party is the largest they’ve faced yet, nine high level combatants. Criminals and rogues, every one of them, The Director assured Riz before they left for the mission. He nodded sagely and assured her that they’d be taken care of.

Riz lets his magic build on his skin in a way that he hasn’t since that first field mission. Something about the way the black lightning arcs up and down his arms scares him. Not only does it burn his skin like he’s standing too close to an open flame but he has a feeling that it isn’t supposed to be happening.

The Doctor never mentioned it as a possible side effect. Riz wonders if it’s an unintended effect of his second dose of the serum. Regardless of the cause, he’s been afraid to summon it during training sessions. He limits how much energy he channels in front of The Trainer, making sure to keep the strange electricity under his skin.

He’s not hiding it, exactly. Just not showing it off.

Except, now, in this quiet desert—made loud by the sounds of guns, swords clanging, and magic explosions—he embraces it. He glows with the power of arcane potentiality.

“Damn, The Ball,”

“Codenames, 02, godsdamn.” Riz says, exasperated. He lets the annoyance fuel his power, lightning arcing higher and higher until he’s nothing but blackened electricity, firing wildly.

“You just want people to call you number one,” Fig teases through the comms.

Riz grits his teeth, frustration building. “I’m trying to be professional here, and I’d appreciate it if you—” he sucks a breath in through his teeth, “did—” exhales long and slow, “the same.”

He lets the lightning fly from his hands and it explodes out of him, an enormous bolt of crackling energy that strikes the closest rogue adventurer to him. They burn to a crisp but the lightning isn’t done yet. It chains, connecting from body to body, burning each and every one of the adventurers. Some fall to their knees, some simply scream in pain, but all are struck by Riz’s spell, unlike any he’s ever cast before.

“Holy shit, 01,” Kristen says, gasping into her comm. “What was that?”

Riz stumbles, landing hard in the hot sand. “Keep fighting,” he commands. “Don’t—”

He falls silent, feeling too sick to his stomach to say another word. He knows he has to move—being a static target on a battlefield is never a good idea—but he doesn’t have the strength to push himself to his feet.

Somehow, the rest of the fight goes smoothly. Riz’s mission report to The Director is almost entirely an invention, seeing as he couldn’t concentrate on anything past the first kill, vision swirling like a kaleidoscope. He even manages to come up with an excuse for the impromptu, post-fight cremation, too, in his debrief.

“Bring the bodies together and cast Fireball, 04,” Riz says, fighting back nausea. “We need to burn them until they can’t be identified.”

“Don’t we have a clean-up crew for this?” Kristen asks with a whine.

“Just do it,” Riz repeats. “Please.”

He doesn’t know why he feels the need to hide the electricity burns across every adventurer’s body but he gets the feeling that it’s important. The clean-up crew would certainly have questions if he didn’t do it.

“Thank you,” Riz says, finally catching his breath to the smell of smoke in the air. “Let’s get home.”

The Director didn’t need to know his reasoning. Just that the job was done and it was done well.

“Foxhounds,” The Director says, surprising the team by showing up to a training session, “It has just occurred to me that I’ve made a mistake. I feel terribly sorry about it but there’s nothing I can do but amend the mistake now.”

“What is it?” Adaine asks curiously.

“In the hectic pace of this project’s mission, I’m afraid that it slipped my mind to take note that you were each still wearing your collars. You’ve earned our trust, time after time, and they should’ve been removed much earlier than now so, for that, I apologize, my Foxhounds.”

Riz tilts his head to the side. The collar had slipped his mind as well. It was easy to forget it was there considering none of the disciplinary spells programmed inside of the collars had been used for months. Like a watch that has been worn for years, Riz no longer feels the collar around his neck at all. It was easy to forget about.

The Director’s eyes are soft and apologetic. “Let’s get those off you right away.” She gestures for six guards to step forward, one for each Foxhound. Each guard inserts a key into the back of the collars which drop open, hitting the training mat with dull thumps.

Riz’s throat feels exposed, vulnerable. He misses the feeling of the collar instantly. His hand goes to his neck and he rubs it nervously, feeling cold air where there shouldn’t be a breeze.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Adaine rubs her throat as well.

“It’s the very least I can do,” The Director replies. “Again, my apologies that you’ve been burdened with these collars for so long. You’ve more than earned your freedom from them.” She nods proudly with a soft upturn to the corners of his lips. “But I won’t interrupt your training session for any longer. I know you have quite a lot to do.”

Riz gives The Director a little wave before she turns to leave. “She’s right, we have more drills. 03, I want to see you watch your six more closely. 04 and 05,” Riz nods to Adaine and Gorgug, “good work on the last round. You’re picking up on what the other needs in the moment without even using comms. I’m impressed.”

Adaine smiles and ducks her head. “Thank you.”

Gorgug nods tightly.

“Let’s run the simulation again.” Riz turns to The Trainer who raises an eyebrow at him. “Is that alright?”

She pushes her cheek out with her tongue and nods slowly. “Sure, kid. Let’s run it again.” Riz catches a smirk on her face.

He crouches and prepares for the first round of dummy combatants.

And he tries to ignore the way that his neck feels like it’s missing something.

Riz lays on the mat and stares at the gymnasium’s ceiling, panting heavy breaths.

“Nice work, The Ball,” Fabian says, tumbling down next to him. “You almost beat me.”

“If they let me use magic against you, I’d beat you every time,” Riz retorts.

“Hey, if telling yourself that helps your ego, do what you need to do.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Riz laughs, kicking at Fabian.

“Up and at ‘em, we need you in the field in five!” The Trainer shouts, bursting into the room. “Emergency mission, get dressed, kids.”

Riz jerks upright and wrenches himself to his feet. He grabs Fabian’s hand and pulls him into the armory.

They’ve been in duos training for most of the night, preparing for possible two-man field missions, and Riz is exhausted. He’s sure the other Foxhounds are asleep by this point, lucky them.

But Riz gets to go on a mission so maybe he’s the lucky one.

He throws on his bullet proof vest, then his gear vest over top, shrugs on a jacket, wraps a scarf around his neck, and taps his temple twice.

“Who am I today?” He asks Fabian who’s latching his sword’s holster around his waist.

“A kobold,” he quickly replies, then taps his own temple, activating his nanomask. “Me?”

“Woah, an aarakocra,” Riz says, holding back a laugh of the sight of Fabian in feathers. Fabian looks aghast as he flips his sword over, trying to catch his reflection in it. “Come on, hurry up.” Riz grabs his case and sprints for the door. He knows which hallways to turn down to get to their getaway car. Fabian has longer legs than him; he’ll catch up.

Riz wonders what the emergency is. By the time Fabian makes it to the car, The Director has already started her mission briefing over their comms. The driver floors the gas before Fabian’s foot is fully inside the van. Things must be very, very urgent.

“Foxhounds, we have a special job for the two of you today. It will need to be your most discrete yet. The roads are swarming with cops and witnesses today and we have no good way to clear your route in or out. Keep your Invisibility up at all costs and kill no innocents. The last thing that I want to see is news of organized killers in the papers tomorrow, do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Got it,” Fabian replies.

“Now, your target has gotten too curious. He’s on our trail and I need him eliminated. Check your holoscreen for his appearance. He was last seen on the Main and 3rd block of Bastion City. He’s on foot so he won’t be far from there. Can I trust you both to finish the job?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Riz, I’m looking forward to your successful mission report.”

The line clicks off, dead. Riz turns to Fabian. “Easy, right?”

“Just a hundred witnesses to a murder on the streets of Bastion City. Sure, easy,” Fabian replies, rolling his eyes. “God, I hate these city jobs.”

“At least they’re nearby.” Riz has noticed by their travel times that the facility is very, very close to Bastion City, if not within the city limits itself. “We’ll be back in bed soon.”

“Now there’s something to look forward to,” Fabian laughs.

The drive is quiet. Their driver never speaks and Riz and Fabian are too tired to keep up much conversation. They pull into a gas station parking lot and, as the driver gets out of the car to buy snacks and establish an alibi, Riz and Fabian sneak out of his door, invisibly.

They jog down the streets, scanning faces for the man they saw in their holoscreen. Riz wonders how he got close to the operation. They’ve been stealthy, invisible agents who do quiet work. What clues had they left behind? Who else might be looking for them?

Down the fifteenth alley they check, they see the man talking to two figures, backlit by neon lights, one short, one tall. The man is leaning towards the short one and speaking animatedly. He’s gesturing wildly with his hands and his face is tense in anxiety.

“I’ll take the innocents, you get the target,” Riz whispers.

He collects arcane energy at his fingertips, light pink in color, and casts it out in front of him. It gathers over the two witnesses and coaxes them into sleep. Their bodies fall limp to the dirty concrete ground. Riz jogs up on the target who begins to panic, looking wildly left and right. He opens his mouth to scream for help but his throat opens into a gash, blood pouring out and turning his words into a death rattle.

Riz looks down at the innocents to make sure that they slept through the kill.

He freezes.

Laying at his feet is the face of a woman he’s seen a thousand times before.

Laying at his feet is his mother.

Riz can’t speak. He can’t breathe. He stares at the lines of her face, the wrinkles between her brow, tense even in sleep. He studies the way her mouth falls open in a loose frown. He looks at his mother and he falters.

Riz’s concentration drops and the Greater Invisibility that cloaked him and Fabian dissolves into light green dust, showering the street. He’s frozen in place, looking down at his mom who begins to stir.

Her eyes open and she blinks languidly. She locks eyes with Riz and he presses his lips together, chewing on the inside of them. His eyes dart up and down her face from eye to chin to temple.

She opens her mouth.

“You remind me of my son,” she mumbles sluggishly. Her eyes are barely cracked open, still drowsy from the effects of the Sleep spell. She pushes herself half-upright and rubs her hand across her face. “You remind me of him.”

“01,” Fabian says, “we need to go.”

“I—”

Fabian wraps a hand around Riz’s bicep and yanks him down the alley.

“But I—”

“Cast Invisibility or we’re blown, 01.” Fabian’s voice is a command. Riz knows how to follow commands, so he does, letting the spell envelope them. He soon loses sight of Fabian entirely but his hand doesn’t drop from Riz’s arm.

He drags Riz back to the gas station parking lot while Riz loses himself in his thoughts, pondering what he just left behind.

Riz casts a spell. He throws a punch. He shoots a bullet. He makes a call, then makes another.

He makes a joke. He takes a shower. He eats a meal.

He makes a mission report.

He thinks. Above all else, he thinks.

He’s done nothing but think about his mom since he saw her in that alley. He thinks about how he hasn’t been thinking about her for months.

How had he been so thoroughly changed that he hadn’t even noticed that she slipped his mind? How had he ended up so far from himself?

The changes had been so small each day but they’ve added up to the point where Riz no longer recognizes himself. Who has he let The Sculptors turn him into? Who has he become?

Had he fallen for their tricks? Had he played into their hand? He’s become the very thing they want him to be: an elite operative. A silent assassin. A team leader, doing their bidding with pride and competency. A cog in their machine.

A Foxhound.

How could he have let this happen?

He remembers the look on his mom’s face in that alley, the one that flipped a switch in his head, clearing his mind. It was tired, worn down, grief-stricken. The way she looked at him with a despairing gaze, it hurt Riz’s heart. She looked like she was already mourning her son, and why wouldn’t she be? How long has he been gone? He’s not sure anymore. He stopped tracking so long ago.

He thinks about his mom and his stomach sinks.

Riz thinks about his mom and he tries not to let it show on his face.

“And lastly, you’re doing this for your mom. Every move you make, make it for her, Riz, if you won’t make it for yourself. I know you think you can handle a lot, and you can, but every day that you submit to The Sculptors is another day that she’s left wondering what happened to her son. Please, kid, think about her.”

His dad’s words echo in his head, day and night. Why hadn’t he listened to them when he first heard those words? He had been so caught up in The Sculptor’s dogma that he couldn’t possibly imagine a world in which he broke free of their shackles. Why would he have even wanted to? The Sculptors treated him so well.

And wasn’t that the issue? The Sculptors had trained him with a carrot and a stick. Of course he would choose the carrot. Then, he would thank them for it and feel lucky that he was offered it at all. Therein lay the problem. He had been brainwashed by a careful reward-or-punishment structure that had, over time, changed who he was.

He had been remade into something unrecognizable.

Or, almost unrecognizable. Somehow, even with his nanomask, his mom had recognized him. She had looked at Riz and seen something in him that The Sculptors couldn’t erase.

That sparked a flame of hope in his chest. Maybe he wasn’t unrepairable. Maybe the changes made to him hadn’t destroyed him irrevocably. If his mom could still see a hint of the Riz that she knew in him, then maybe he hadn’t been destroyed. Just molded.

But The Director was right about something. If he was a lump of clay, capable of being reformed by The Sculptors, then he would be able to be reformed again, returned to his original state.

The spark of hope burns stronger when he realizes who his mom was talking to: someone hot on the trail of the Foxhounds. Is she on their trail, too? Is she close to finding him?

He can’t let himself hope for someone else to rescue the six of them, though. No, even if he wants to believe in a world where his mom could sweep into the facility and break him and the other Foxhounds out, he can’t rely on someone else.

He’ll have to do it himself.

In the training room, Riz’s battlefield tactics start eroding in effectiveness. He makes calls but they aren’t the optimal ones. The other Foxhounds, the other Bad Kids, get hurt twice as often as they should as a result of his bad calls.

It’s just that other things are on Riz’s mind during their sessions. Like who he can trust, for instance.

Fabian and Fig are definitely out. Having both been Circletted, they’re sure to be loyal to The Sculptors without fail. He doesn’t know why Fabian hadn’t turned him in the instant that he saw Riz’s composure falter when he saw his mom in that alleyway. Riz can be grateful, at least, for that because he doesn’t know how he could play off the encounter in a mission report. He had conveniently left it out of his debrief from that night. Regardless, Fabian and Fig couldn’t be trusted.

Kristen is also a no. She is too easily and wholly swayed by The Sculptor’s doctrine. She seems to believe in the mission as strongly as The Director herself. That blind loyalty is dangerous. Riz is sure that she would turn him in if he brought up plans for an escape to her.

Adaine, though, is a more complicated option. Riz doesn’t think she’s ever fully bought into the mission of the Foxhounds. But she, even today, still seems so afraid of The Sculptors. Too afraid, certainly, to risk her wellbeing by conspiring to organize an escape plan.

Gorgug is another story entirely. Throughout everything, he’s never seemed to buy into The Sculptor’s persuasions or manipulations. He wasn’t seduced by the gifts or privileges allotted to the Foxhounds—no, the Bad Kids—by The Sculptors. When he and Riz were roommates, he had called Riz out, with good reason, for the way that he was falling for their captors’ schemes. Riz had waved him off but now he could see that Gorgug was right. Riz had lost himself somewhere along the way because he had fallen for those little things, one after another, changing him a fraction at a time, until he became someone else.

Gorgug is his best bet, Riz decides.

His deliberation distracts him and the cost is severe. Riz is shot in the back of the thigh by a dummy’s rifle and he falls out of his perch, crashing onto the ground twenty feet below him.

The pain is grounding. In this moment, Riz feels the most clear headed he’s ever felt and hopeful that things could change.

He smiles, leg broken, blood pouring out of his bullet wound.

He has a chance.

He can do this.

Chapter Text

THE HUNT FOR ELMVILLE’S MISSING CHILDREN CONTINUES

THE ELMVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT CONTINUES THEIR HUNT FOR THE SIX MISSING CHILDREN WHO DISAPPEARED FROM THE STREETS OF DOWNTOWN ELMVILLE FIVE DAYS AGO. THE LEAD INVESTIGATOR OF EPD, ABRAHAM SLYVESTER, STATES THAT “WE FEEL VERY OPTIMISTIC ABOUT OUR ABILITIES TO FIND THESE SIX CHILDREN.” A CONFIDENTIAL SOURCE, HOWEVER, HAS REPORTED TO US THAT THE EPD HAVE NO LEADS AS TO WHERE THESE CHILDREN HAVE GONE.

THE CHILDREN WERE LAST SEEN NEAR THE SHORE OF RIVER MARIGOLD, JUST OFF OF MAIN STREET. A PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF EACH OF THE SIX STUDENTS CAN BE FOUND ON THE FOLLOWING PAGE.

THE POLICE ARE URGING ANYONE WITH INFORMATION THAT COULD AID IN LOCATING THE CHILDREN TO REPORT SAID INFORMATION TO THE EPD. THERE IS A GOLD REWARD FOR ANY TIP THAT RESULTS IN THEIR LOCATION BEING FOUND. MORE INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND AT OUR WEBSITE, THEELMVILLEGAZETTE.ZOM

Sklonda takes a sip from her takeout coffee—two silver pieces wasted because she couldn’t keep her eyes open—and reads the newspaper article as she walks down Main Street. She almost runs into a stranger rushing to work, too distracted by the article to apologize to them.

She flips the paper over and reads the physical descriptions.

FIGUEROTH FAETH IS A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD TIEFLING WITH LIGHT PINK SKIN AND SHORT, CURVED HORNS. HER HORNS ARE BANDED WITH DARK RED AND BLACK. SHE WAS LAST SEEN WEARING A LONG SLEEVED FISHNET SHIRT, ORANGE TANK TOP, AND BLACK SKIRT. HER HAIR IS SHOULDER LENGTH AND BLACK WITH PINK HIGHLIGHTS. SHE IS FIVE FEET AND SIX INCHES TALL.

RIZ GUKGAK IS A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD GOBLIN WITH MEDIUM GREEN SKIN AND LARGE EARS. HE HAS DARK GREEN FRECKLES ON HIS FACE AND ARMS. HE WAS LAST SEEN WEARING—

Sklonda stops reading. She already knows what Riz was last seen in; she was the one who reported his appearance to the police. She doesn’t need the reminder of what her son looks like. He lives in her head, after all. She can’t stop picturing him or the last time she saw him.

“I’m going out, mom!” Riz calls out from the kitchen counter. He chugs the rest of his coffee and reaches over the counter to drop the mug in the sink. “We’re gonna go throw rocks in the river.”

“For once, kid, do you want to try skipping the rocks?”

“Nope!”

Riz smiles widely and sidles over to his mom’s side. He kisses her on the cheek quickly and jogs out the door.

“Bye, Riz, I love you,” Sklonda says, chuckling.

“Love you, too!”

She clings to that memory like a lifeline. When she said goodbye to him that day, she didn’t know how long he would be leaving for. That very night, they had plans to go to the local gnomish dinner joint and order more noodles than they could possibly eat. 

She never got her noodles.

She throws her empty cup into a trash can on the street and pushes open the door into the Elmville Police Department.

She never thought she’d be back here but, with a determined look locked onto her face, she does what she knows she needs to do.

Sklonda pushes open the door to the Chief of Police’s office, despite protests from his secretary and nails Chief Sylvester with a piercing gaze.

“I want my job back.”

When Sklonda imagined what her life would be, back on the force, she didn’t expect quite as much paperwork.

Her eyes go blurry. She takes off her reading glasses and scrubs at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Good gods,” she mutters.

“Long day?” Trinnie asks from her desk.

Sklonda looks at Trinnie and silently begs her to ask another question so Sklonda has inarguable grounds to punch her in the face.

“Sorry, stupid question,” Trinnie continues. “Can I—” Sklonda grits her teeth, preparing for the worst. “Can I get you another coffee?”

“Oh,” Sklonda says, sighing. That was just about the best thing someone could say to her, other than, we found your son. “Yeah, Trinnie.”

“Hey, listen,” Trinnie says, grabbing Sklonda’s mug, covered in the sediment of each coffee she’s poured today. “We’re gonna find him, okay? I know that’s why you joined the force again. I mean, that’s my theory anyway because why else would the old lead detective volunteer to start all over at the bottom?”

Sklonda bites her tongue. “Yes, Trinnie. I’m here for my son.” She leaves out the, obviously, that she wishes she could say. “If there’s a single lead, I need to be the first to know. The chief knows that. That’s why I’m here.”

Trinnie nods. “Hey, I get you. If my son were gone, I’d do the exact same thing.”

Sklonda tries not to scowl. “Yeah, well, he’s not.”

“Hm?”

“Your son’s not gone.” Sklonda’s jaw clenches. “Mine is,” she hisses.

“No, yeah, I know.” Trinnie takes a step back, clutching Sklonda’s mug. “I’m sorry, Sklonda. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Can you just—can I get that coffee,” Sklonda huffs, “please?”

She sighs.

Trinnie had one thing right. They are going to find him.

She isn’t debasing herself by working as a pig again for no reason. She’s doing it to find her son and, by every god above, she will find him.

BLOG INTERVIEW WITH ELMVILLE POLICE CHIEF

Have you been keeping up with the Elmville news? If not, let me, Amy Cedar, be the one to guide you through what’s happening in this quaint town in our nation of Solace. Today, I had a chance to interview the Elmville Chief of Police, Abraham Sylvester, about the missing students from Aguefort Adventuring Academy.

CEDAR: Thank you for meeting with me today, Chief Sylvester.

SLYVESTER: It’s my pleasure. Anything to get the word out about these kids.

CEDAR: When you say, “these kids,” you are, of course, referring to the six students who went missing last month from the streets of Elmville, is that right?

SLYVESTER: That’s right.

[AUTHOR NOTE: The names of said students are Adaine Abernant, Kristen Applebees, Figueroth Faeth, Riz Gukgak, Fabian Seacaster, and Gorgug Thistlespring.]

CEDAR: And these students have not been seen or heard from since their disappearance?

SYLVESTER: As far as we know, they have not. The EPD has received a few tips from people who claim to have seen the students but we’ve yet to be able to confirm a sighting, unfortunately.

CEDAR: Is it true that, in cases such as these, the chances of finding the individuals alive have dropped considerably? Due to the period of time that they’ve been missing?

SYLVESTER: Yes, in other cases such as these, the chances of finding the missing person or persons alive would have dropped significantly by now. That being said, these are not normal missing persons; these are adventurers.

CEDAR: Adventurers in training, no?

SYLVESTER: Well, yes. I suppose they’re still in training. (Clearing throat) Do you have any other questions?

CEDAR: My readers are wondering if there’s been any updates that you can share about these missing children. You said that you received tips that haven’t been fruitful but have you received any that are helping to guide your investigation?

SYLVESTER: I’m sorry to say that that’s information I cannot share. It’s confidential, regrettably.

Sklonda scowls. Even if she weren’t on the force, she would know that’s code for, we haven’t got squat. She turns her crystal off. There isn't going to be anything useful on it for her. It seems that the news cycle had already tired of these missing kids. Two weeks and, what, they no longer mattered?

It pissed Sklonda the fuck off.

The kids hadn’t become any less missing. But the news had nothing new to report on so they just stopped bringing up the fact that six children disappeared off the streets of Elmville. She was left reading blog posts from amateur interviewers to hear anything at all about her kid.

She leans back against the gravestone and closes her eyes.

“Pok, I don’t know what the fuck to do,” she whispers. “I miss him so much. It’s like a piece of my heart is gone and I can just feel the hole aching every time it beats. It’s just like—” Sklonda clears her throat, fighting back tears, “it’s just like when you died. I don’t know how many years it took for that hole in my heart to heal but, gods, Pok, this is Riz. It’s our baby. I’m supposed to be watching him grow up into a young man. Not begging the universe to tell me if he’s even alive.

“Is he? Fuck, hon, I wish you could tell me if he was alive. I need to know. Can you,” she taps her fingers on her thigh, lost in thought. “Gods. Can you send me a sign? Shit, I sound like an idiot. Asking my dead husband to communicate through the grave. I just… I really need to know that Riz is still alive. I don’t know what I would do if he weren’t.

“I can’t be the last Gukgak. I wouldn’t be able to survive it.”

Sklonda huffs, rubbing tears out of her eyes. She’s usually not one to cry but it’s like her body forgets that particular fact and sends tears flowing down her face anyway.

She supposes these are extenuating circumstances. It’s not every day your kid disappears.

She tips her head forward and pulls her knees up to her chest, resting her forehead on her legs. She curls into the smallest ball she can and pretends like she can feel her husband’s arms around her, holding her tightly.

It’s all the warmth she can summon, this false pretense of comfort from a dead man.

She sobs once, surprising herself, before shoving her knuckles against her mouth, muffling the sound.

She sobs again and again until she can’t hold the cries back any longer. She gives up entirely, sprawls out on the grass over Pok’s grave, and lets herself weep.

In ten minutes, she’ll wipe her face, grit her teeth, and get back to work.

Until then, she gives her body permission to break down. If anyone wants to walk past Pok’s grave and judge her for mourning her dead husband and missing son, let them, she thinks.

BASTION CITY NEWS BULLETIN AT TEN

“Hello, I’m Clarabella Pepperpott,”

“And I’m Wendell Coppercoat with Bastion City News.”

“On today’s five o’clock news, an update on the highly contentious plans to build a dog park on 5th and Pine Street. Will the city move forward with its construction or have the protestors shut down their plans?”

“An interview with the creator of the AuraBox, a ring box that can sense the mood of your soon-to-be fiancé and let you know if they’re ready for you to pop the question.”

“And an update on the missing adventuring parties, another group reported missing as recently as last night.”

“Clarabella, how many adventuring parties is this now?”

“I believe this is the fifth to be reported missing within Solace but who knows if this strange phenomena is more widespread than that! What I do know is that you should be very, very careful if you’re planning an outing with your party. We don’t know what it is that’s causing these groups of seasoned adventurers to disappear but we know it can’t be good.”

“That’s right, everyone. Please take extreme caution. I’d hate to see any more parties become lost.”

“Last night, the adventurers known as the Pebble Crew, a party that has been together for one hundred and thirty years, disappeared straight off the streets of Bastion City. A close friend of the party leader stated to the press that, ‘last I heard, they were going to train in a forest clearing just past the off-skirts of east Bastion City. When I went to check this morning, they were nowhere to be found.’”

“And now, reportedly, no members of the Pebble Crew are answering their crystals. They’ve simply disappeared without a trace.”

“Is this some sort of unknowable magic? Voluntary disappearances? Or, perhaps, an organization capable of disappearing party after party?”

“I wouldn’t want to put any far fetched ideas like that one in anyone’s heads, Clarabella. But no matter what, be alert, people of Bastion City. You never know what might be coming.”

The morning news was Sklonda’s last straw. She carries herself straight to the chief’s office when she gets to the police department with the voices of the newscasters still playing in her head.

“Don’t make me beg for this, Sylvester. Just put me on the team for the missing adventurers and I won’t bother you again.”

“I somehow don’t believe that.”

“It could be connected, sir. Think about it, the Bad Kids could’ve been the first adventuring party targeted.”

“Gukgak, I hate to say it but those kids disappeared months ago. I can’t say with any confidence that their disappearance could be connected to these ones. Not only has it been, what, three months? But each of these adventuring parties that have disappeared have been well-established, well-seasoned parties with years and years of experience. I hate to say it but those kids were just that: kids. They don’t fit the profile for these new disappearances. I don’t think they’re related.”

Sklonda burns with fiery rage, pushed far, far down. She’s well-practiced in repressing that anger but, today, it threatens to catch her aflame.

“I understand that you think that, sir,” she says with barely disguised sarcasm. “But that shouldn’t stop you from putting me on the team investigating these disappearances. I’m capable, you know that. Experienced. I can make a difference. Take my son out of it,” she says, hating herself as she does. “I’m just a detective asking to investigate. That’s all this is.”

“You’re a rookie cop, Gukgak. This isn’t a rookie’s job.”

Sklonda presses her lips together tightly. If she doesn’t, she’ll scream and she’ll curse and she’ll spit. She takes a deep breath in and out. “I’m no rookie and you know that.”

Sylvester takes a sip from his coffee mug, slow and deliberate. “Sorry, Gukgak. I need you on desk work. Maybe in a year or two you’ll be ready for some bigger jobs.”

Sklonda smiles tightly. She slips her badge off her button-down and pulls her gun from its holster.

With the most resonant bang she can manage, she slams both down on the chief’s desk.

“Gukgak, don’t be hasty here.”

“With all due respect, Abraham, you can go fuck yourself.”

Sklonda storms out of the police office and never sees the inside of it again.

“Hey, Sandy,” Sklonda says into her crystal, three shots of tequila later. “I need a favor,” she slurs, leaning forward on the bar.

The bartender gives her a worried look. It’s 12:09 P.M., and Sklonda is the only patron inside the bar. It’s not officially open yet but she guesses she looked desperate enough, trying to open the locked doors, that the bartender took pity on her and let her inside while he prepped for opening.

“Another,” Sklonda says to him, “pretty please.” She’s not herself, she knows that. Tequila tends to do that to a person. She doesn’t care, though, because if anyone deserves to get drunk today, it’s her.

“Sklonda?” Sandra Lynn asks over the crystal. “You okay?”

“Oh, I’m good, I’m good. I’m great. Guess who got to tell the Chief of Police to fuck himself for the second time in three years?”

“Oh, honey. Do you need to come over?”

“I need a favor, is what I need,” Sklonda lays her forehead down on the cold bar. “We’re going to become Riz.”

“What?”

“Private investigators,” Sklonda says, cheek squished against the sticky counter. Her voice comes out half-slurred, half-garbled. “We’re gonna find these fucking kids. The police are incompetent fucks with shit for brains and they have no idea what they’re doing. You and me, Sandy, we’re gonna fucking find them.”

Sklonda lifts her chin, looking for her next shot. The bartender looks down at her clothes with a smirk on his face.

She supposes there is something funny about shit-talking the police while wearing their uniform. She starts chuckling idly.

“Sklonda, you’re wasted, aren’t you?”

“I’m as clear headed as I need to be. Listen. I’ve got some leads, I’ve got some theories. We have a chance, Sandy. Don’t you want a chance?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then let’s fucking do it.”

The line crackles with the sound of Sandra Lynn’s sigh. “Don’t get my hopes up, Sklonda.”

Sklonda sighs and drums her fingers on the counter. “I can’t do nothing, Sandy. If you don’t want to help me, I get it. But I’ve got a new avenue to go down. I’m walking that path whether or not you’re walking next to me.”

There’s a long silence where nothing, not even a breath, comes through the crystal. Sklonda bites her tongue and hopes she somehow managed to string together enough coherent thoughts to convince Sandra Lynn to help her. Maybe she should’ve been sober for this conversation, she thinks, far too late.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes, Sklonda, don’t ask me again or I might change my mind. We’re doing this.”

Sklonda grins widely. “Fuck yes we are! Now come pick me up from Andry’s. I’m wasted.”

THREAD TITLE: have you heard of the night wraiths?

BODY: i’ve heard them called a few things. the night wraiths. the things that come. the deathbringers. whatever you wnt to call them, they’re coming for adventuring parties who do good fucking work. idk much guys but this shit is real. it’s a group of killers and they’re coming.

watch out adventuerrs. you might be next.

COMMENT: Come on, dude, the Night Wraiths?

REPLY: im so serious man, watch the news. if you read between the lines, you can figur it out

COMMENT: he’s right. their out there. i hear that its just two people tho

REPLY: no way 2 people can do all this. its at least five or six wraiths. im telling you.

COMMENT: Sure, dude. Six “Night Wraiths” are coming for us. Thanks for the warning, I’ll be sure to take it to heart.

REPLY: you wont be so cocky when your dead, man

Sklonda holds on tight to a grab handle on Baxter’s saddle with one hand and scrolls down her crystal with the other. Six months into her investigation of her missing kid, she’s run out of any formal sources for her information gathering. She’s in the dregs now: blog posts, forum threads, comments under grainy video uploads.

This thread has her curious, though, because she’s heard the same claims made by the original poster in multiple places on the web. It’s not just vague imagination that conjured up the idea of these Night Wraiths; it was real evidence, spread so thin it was almost impossible to identify.

She’s a Gukgak, though. She can do impossible things. And today, her impossible task is leading her to a primary source in Bastion City. She met him on an online forum about missing persons and they’ve been talking for a few weeks now.

According to him, MissingHer62, his wife disappeared from the streets of Bastion City last month. She cut through a shortcut between her work and the nearest parking structure and, in an instant, she was gone.

The next morning, when he followed in her footsteps via businesses’ security cameras, he found that the only camera pointing down that alleyway was shot out before it could capture whatever happened to her.

She is still missing, presumed dead. MissingHer62 hasn’t stopped looking for her since.

“The fact that the camera was shot out is very compelling,” Sklonda shouts over the wind. Sandra Lynn nods, letting her know that she’s listening. “That means this isn’t magic. It’s people, right? People are disappearing these parties.”

“Right!” Sandra Lynn shouts over her shoulder. “People with guns.”

“An organized criminal ring, maybe,” Sklonda says. “It would take a lot of people to do this job. I was reading a forum and they said it was five or six people. Can you imagine? Six people capable of making adventurer after adventurer disappear? They’d have to be, like, insane.”

“Yeah.”

“Like unreal.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ve had this conversation already,” Sandra Lynn shouts. “You’ve gotta get off those forums. All those nutjobs with theories… It’s bad for you, Sklonda.”

“No, but it’s how I met MissingHer. And if he can give us a lead, then, well, we’ll know where to go next, right?”

“Sure,” Sandra Lynn says, voice carried away by the fast winds. “We’re almost there.”

Sklonda goes back to scrolling. She has to sort through a lot of shit but she might just find something worthwhile buried in it.

“The cops won’t listen to me. And I brought it up with the fucking Ministry of Public Safety, letting them know this is a threat to every adventurer in this nation but they told me to fuck off.”

“In those words?” Sandra Lynn asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Practically.”

“What do you know?”

“There was blood left at the scene. And the blood was augmented, somehow,” MissingHer says, gesturing wildly. He’s wearing a mask over the bottom half of his face and rectangular sunglasses even though the only light present is the glowing neon sign behind them. Main and 7th Street is a bright, loud corner and this alley, an offshoot from it, isn’t much better. “I snuck into the forensic office of the police department and saw the results. Now, I didn’t understand them all but there was something unnatural in the blood.”

Sklonda’s ears perk up. “What kind of blood was it?”

“Human, unfortunately. I know, I know,” he asserts, “that doesn’t narrow it down much. But it tells us a lot. These aren’t gods. They bleed too. But they’re more than human.”

Sklonda grips her hands into fists, holding all of her excited energy in her fingertips. This is the best lead she’s gotten in months. “You mean the augmentation?”

“Exactly. The forensic scientist left a note in the margins. He wrote, ‘injection of enhanced proficiency?’”

“What does that mean?” Sandra Lynn asks, looking left and right, watching their exits.

MissingHer frowns. “I wish I knew. But if this person, this murderer, has injections that augment them, how powerful could they be? Are they beyond mortal capabilities? Are they unstoppable?”

“You think it’s just one assailant?” Sklonda asks.

“I don’t know. I’ve heard rumors of a team. It would explain how they could overpower so many large parties. But, in my head, I’m imagining a single super soldier. Someone who has been upgraded into something barely human. More of a weapon than a person.”

“Damn,” Sandra Lynn says.

“That’s right. Shit, I almost forgot the most important part,” he says, gesturing wildly. “The—

Sklonda’s eyelids grow heavy. She’s tired, so tired. She can’t stay awake.

She falls limp on the dirty concrete ground.

Sklonda’s eyes open slowly. She blinks once, then twice. There’s someone standing over her. She’s face to face with their heavy, military-grade boots. They wear a bulletproof vest with another vest covered in pockets over top of it. They have a scarf around their neck, covering their throat.

They’re a kobold with wide, golden eyes. In them, she sees the wide, golden eyes of her son. The kobold chews on his bottom lip and, in that moment, they remind Sklonda so much of Riz that her heart clenches painfully.

“You remind me of my son,” Sklonda mumbles sluggishly. Her eyes are barely cracked open, still drowsy from the effects of the Sleep spell. She pushes herself half-upright and rubs her hand across her face. “You remind me of him.”

Suddenly, an aarakocra appears over the kobold’s shoulder.

“01,” they say, “we need to go.”

“I—” The kobold’s mouth has fallen open. He doesn’t blink, eyes locked onto Sklonda’s.

The aarakocra wraps a hand around the kobold’s bicep and yanks him down the alley.

“But I—”

A few more words are exchanged between the two but Sklonda can’t make them out. Then, in a puff of gray smoke, both figures disappear, completely Invisible.

Sklonda looks around herself, still trying to wake up fully. She sees Sandra Lynn, stirring next to her. Sklonda turns to MissingHer and watches blood pour from his throat.

“Oh,” she says.

Sklonda smiles at the sight of his body, slowly dripping out the last of its life. She smiles because she knows what his sudden murder means.

It means he was close to something.

And now, Sklonda’s close to it, too.

Chapter Text

“Oh, nice,” Riz hears Kristen say as she pushes her way into the conference room where he, Fabian, Gorgug, and Fig are already sitting. Adaine walks in behind her and they both pull out chairs at the table. “What are we having today?”

After the occasional successful mission, The Sculptors have been bringing the Foxhounds together for team lunches in the same conference room that once held their joint birthday party. It’s a chance for team bonding, a reward for good behavior and a nice change in routine to keep the Foxhounds feeling satisfied, or at least that’s how The Sculptors are presenting these lunches. But Riz knows the truth now. It’s a manipulation tactic.

He’s not falling for it anymore. He has bigger plans for today’s manufactured picnic.

“Tuna salad, chicken salad, actual salad,” Fabian says, flipping through the basket in the center of the table. “Ugh, crab salad, too.”

“Dibs,” Kristen says, yanking the sandwich from his hands.

“I’ll take a tuna,” Gorgug says quietly. Riz locks eyes with him and tries to convey with a single glance, hey, we’re in this together now. We’re going to get out of here.

As far as he can tell, it doesn’t work.

“I’m with you,” Riz says, trying to catch Gorgug’s eye.

“Huh?” Gorgug finally looks up at Riz.

“I’ll also take a tuna,” Riz quickly adds. “With you on that. Love a tuna sandwich.”

“Terrible opinion, The Ball,” Fabian says, pulling a glass container of some sort of kale salad out of the picnic basket. He opens the lid and spears it with his fork. “But it leaves more real salad for me.”

Adaine frowns. “Is there another real salad?” She asks.

Fig digs into the basket and pulls one out, handing it to Adaine with a smile. “All yours. I’ll take the chicken.”

Riz is suddenly thrown back to his memories of the Aguefort cafeteria, swapping meals with each other, stealing things from the others’ plates. He remembers peeling oranges, distributing slices for each of the Bad Kids, and getting squares of cornbread in return. He remembers trading his chocolate milk carton for Kristen’s normal milk, happy for the calories, no matter what form they were in.

He hasn’t had to worry about calories since he was in the outside world working with a limited grocery budget. The Sculptors have provided more than enough food for him. That kind of comfort coaxed Riz into a more agreeable state, he was sure. It’s easy to feel warmly about someone who keeps you well fed, after all.

Though he almost forgot the hunger strike. Another manipulation tactic. What better way to make your Foxhounds appreciate being fed than by showing them what starvation feels like? After their hierarchy of needs was toppled, anything they earned felt like such a luxury that it was all too easy to forget why, exactly, they felt that way.

The Sculptors are orchestrating master manipulation after master manipulation and it’s still making Riz’s head spin. He fights to keep his attention on his plan. And the very first step was to get Gorgug on his side.

“What was that adventurer’s deal, anyway?” Riz asks, suddenly. He spent half of yesterday coming up with those six words, vetoing dozens of options before landing on this one. It was a delicate balance. He needed something that wouldn’t raise alarm from the majority of listening ears but that would spark curiosity in those who might be waiting for a sign.

He needs his question to show Gorgug that he isn’t just a mindless machine following the orders of The Sculptors without questioning them.

The Sculptors have a simple expectation for each Foxhound: do each job without asking questions. If Riz shows a hint of curiosity about said jobs, just a vague suggestion of, I’m wondering why we’re doing what we’re doing, then maybe Gorgug will recognize his subtle infraction of The Sculptor’s expectations as evidence that Riz is ready to start pushing back against them.

“Who cares?” Fig asks, just like Riz knew she would.

“Their deal is that they needed to be killed,” Fabian says, rolling his eyes.

Riz forces a laugh, as carefree as he can manage to fake. The others laugh too but Riz isn’t paying attention to them. His eyes are locked directly onto Gorgug’s.

Gorgug is looking right back at him.

“Okay, let’s split up in duos!” Riz calls out from the top of the climbing ropes in the gym. He’s been practicing holding onto the ropes with just his thighs so he can still shoot his gun or his Lightning Bolts while in the air.

He wraps himself up in the ropes just so, then lets himself dead drop. The ropes catch him six inches from the gymnasium floor.

He grins. There’s a rabid excitement in the air, or maybe just in his body. He uses it to fuel him on this potentially unwise plan of his.

“Gorgug, you’re with me. Adaine, Kristen, work on some calisthenics. Fig, Fabian, get some ranged training in on the dummies. Fig, no magic. Fabian, no weapons.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Riz realizes he used names, not numbers.

He doesn’t freeze up, doesn’t let himself draw any attention to his mistake. He’s too well-trained for that. He pointedly doesn’t look at The Trainer and he beckons Gorgug to him, instead.

“Let’s run some drills,” Riz says, pulling Gorgug to the furthest corner of the gym from The Trainer’s watchful eye. “Superset F, okay?”

“Sure,” Gorgug says with a shrug. He drops to the ground in a plank and Riz follows his lead.

Riz tries to open his mouth, to form words, to follow the script that he constructed, laying in bed last night. He tries but he finds it almost impossible to do. Finally, minutes of silence later, his mouth opens. “How—”

Riz chokes on his saliva, coughing heavily. He sits straight up, trying to catch his breath.

“You good, man?”

“Sorry, no, I mean, yeah. I’m good,” Riz clears his throat. “How would you feel, uh—”

Gorgug looks at him with expectant eyes, like he already knows what Riz is going to say.

“How would you feel about things changing around here?” Riz asks, words forced out one by one. He swallows at the end of the question, sick to his stomach.

Gorgug narrows his eyes at Riz, almost imperceptibly, but Riz is reading every line on his face and he doesn’t miss it. “What do you mean?”

“The way things are now,” Riz continues, following his script carefully, by the letter. “How would you feel if they changed?”

Gorgug takes a deep breath in and as he lets it out, he says, “I wouldn’t be opposed to that.”

Riz fights back a smile. He wants to beam. He’s sure he just found himself an ally in Gorgug. He wants to jump up and down and grin his face off but he can’t. Instead, he delivers the final lines of his script, the ones written for plausible deniability. “Good, good,” a deep breath in, “let’s change up the training regime, then. 05, you and me. Melee, no weapons. Fight like you’re fighting for your life,” Riz says.

Gorgug nods, a serious look in his eyes. He doesn’t look anywhere close to a smile. He looks like there’s been a blaze burning in him for a long, long time, starved for oxygen, and that fire was just fed. He looks like he’s ready for anything.

Riz presses his lips together. He made the right choice, he thinks, in an ally. Without Gorgug, Riz has no chance at escape. He needs the bulk and the brawn that Gorgug has but, more than that, he needs the fierce determination and clearheadedness that he somehow kept through everything. Riz admires it, he really does. He wishes he could say he never fell for The Sculptors’ tricks either, but that wouldn’t be the truth.

On the mats, Riz fights Gorgug with everything he has. Sweat pours down his back, drenching his shirt. From exertion, nerves, or something else, Riz isn’t sure; all he knows is that he’s dehydrated, tired, and sore by the end of the training session.

All he knows is that he’s never felt better.

Riz looks around the van at the other Bad Kids. The light of the backseat reflects off endless silver. Gorgug’s axe blade, Fabian’s rapier hilt, Adaine’s arm, Fig’s metal flute. Even Riz’s claws reflect the light that comes in through the windows. The cool, icy light permeates every inch of the van’s backseat. It casts harsh lights and shadows on the faces of his friends, making them look stern and unyielding. Or maybe that was just how they always looked these days and Riz was only just realizing it.

It didn’t help that everyone already had their nanomasks up for the mission. The van had a dragonborn, an elf, two genasis, a spring eladrin, and a gnome. No one looked the way Riz wanted them to.

He’s spent too long caught up in The Sculptor’s master plan. He forgot that, if he truly looked around himself, he could peer through the mist and see things for what they really are. What he sees now is a lack of empathy that has slowly eased its way into the other Bad Kids. A disassociation from their actions, their rampant killings, and an emotional detachment from the idea that they were ending lives.

It was just another job, just another thing to tick off the list. The people they were killing, the Foxhounds weren’t taught to look at them as people, rather, targets. Check-boxes. A to-do list.

It makes Riz sick but he can’t show it, not for a second. He’s too close to escape to risk raising any suspicions. He doesn’t just have to blend in with the others; as team leader, he has to encourage the brutality in them. He has to order them to kill with gusto.

If Riz thinks too hard about it, it starts to make him nauseated so, instead, he tries to compartmentalize things, disassociating his actions from their accordant ethical considerations.

He has exactly two missions today to focus on.

Number one, blend in. He’ll kill like he always does: with exceptional competence. He’ll act like it doesn’t bother him in the least. Riz knows he can do it because Gorgug’s been able to stay under the radar by doing the same. So he’ll kill and make up for his sins later.

Number two, he needs to test his capabilities. His second dose of serum did something to him of which Riz wasn’t entirely cognizant. He knows he feels ten times stronger than he did before the latest dose. He also knows that the magic builds at his fingertips like it’s itching to come out. He’s sure that, if he lets himself let loose, he can wreak destruction in ways that he never imagined he was capable of in the past.

He thinks back to his dad’s words. I need you to remember a few things. First, your opponents will always underestimate you but you need to never underestimate yourself. Riz knows that he’s supposed to see himself as nothing more than a pawn in someone else’s game but he refuses. He’s going to push himself to his very limits and see what he can do. He’ll listen to his dad; he won’t underestimate what he’s capable of.

And then, once he knows exactly what kind of power he has access to, he'll begin to plan his escape.

Riz bites the inside of his cheek, trying to fight back an excited upturn of his lips.

He locks eyes with Gorgug across the van’s seats. He nods, something that could easily just mean, I’m ready for this next mission.

But he and Gorgug both know it means a lot more than that.

“Let’s take out the cameras,” Riz whispers into his comms. “03, 02, 06, you take north, east, and south. I’ve got west.” Affirmations come through the comms. Riz takes aim at the factory’s west camera and breathes in slowly.

He has an idea.

“In three, two, one,” Riz fires his rifle, embedding the bullet one inch to the right of the security camera. He looks away from it quickly and leaps off the rooftop. Adaine catches him with a Bigby’s Hand and carries him to the second story landing of the fire escape. “Take your positions,” he orders, embodying the team leader that he was once so excited to become.

He doesn’t know what good it’ll be, leaving a live security camera on their fight, or if the risk is worth the possible benefit, but something in Riz just screams at him to sabotage the mission. It feels good, somehow, to know that he did something directly opposed to The Sculptor’s desires.

“Position report?”

“Ready and waiting,” Fabian says.

“With 06, in position,” Adaine replies.

“You know it,” Fig says lazily.

“Alright, doors. In three, two, one,” Riz orders through his comms.

The doors to the abandoned factory all slam open at once, kicked or shot inwards. The Director told them that this assignment didn’t need to be quiet—there was no one around for miles—it needed to be fast. As desperately as Riz wanted to know why, he fought the impossible and, instead, nodded with blood filling his mouth.

He can only bite his tongue for so much longer.

Riz forces himself to slip into the persona of his past self. Someone who would be eager to see four, prone targets, only just stirring from their bedrolls. They didn’t even have someone on watch. He forces a self-assured smile onto his face. For better or for worse, this fight was going to be an easy one.

“Fuckin’ amateurs,” Fig laughs, the sound crackling in Riz’s comm. She takes her time, jogging from the farthest door of the factory.

“It’s embarrassing,” Fabian agrees as he sprints into the fray, stomping his heavy boot on the closest adventurer. Riz lays down on his stomach on the metal catwalk of the second floor and aims his rifle down at the prey laid out for him. Fabian locks eyes with him, waiting for Riz to take the shot, but Riz feels sick to his stomach.

He exhales slowly, letting his finger gently pull the trigger.

The adventurer’s head explodes in a mass of gore, covering their party members in brain matter and blood. He nods. It was a quick and painless kill. They didn’t suffer. He reloads quickly.

Gorgug roars, charging in from the east and he lets his heavy axe swing down at an adventurer who tries to push themselves to their feet.

With a single swing and the smallest wince Riz has ever seen, Gorgug severs their left foot. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment but Riz, with his newfound awareness, could see that Gorgug took no joy in that move. He does a good job of hiding the aversion, though, and he simply swings his axe back up and lets the blood spray across the room.

“Brutal,” Fig says, a laugh in her voice, finally closing the distance between herself and the others. She digs her heels into the floor and grounds herself. “Now, do it again.”

It’s Riz’s turn to wince but Gorgug plays his part masterfully. He nods and repeats the process on the adventurer’s other ankle. They’re left writhing on the ground, screaming in pain and shock in equal measure.

“Please shut them up,” Adaine complains. She dives out from behind a water tank, icy magic collecting between her hands. She holds the orb of volatile energy close to her chest, letting it build and build. “No, wait. I’ll do it myself.”

She throws the compressed ball of icy energy through the air, pitching it at the adventurer’s heart.

The screaming stops.

Riz takes stock of the battlefield. Two adventurers remain and, if their gear is any indication, the Bad Kids are left facing a monk and a sorcerer.

He knows the monk could spell trouble so he adjusts his sights on him. Before he can get a clear shot, though, the monk takes off like a bullet from a gun, flying across the room to rain down punches on Kristen. She dodges them expertly, ducking and weaving through the flurry of blows.

Kristen laughs just as easily as Fig did, the adrenaline of battle fueling their manic cackles. “Come on, you can do better than that!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Riz catches the sorcerer throwing a Circle of Death into the air that covers almost every Bad Kid. The comm line is filled with staticky coughing. Fig and Fabian hunch over, painful coughs wracking their bodies. Riz rolls over onto his side, trying to clear his airway, but he hacks and hacks without relief. Adaine ducks behind the water tank again, falling to the ground and grasping her chest.

Riz has just enough air left in his lungs to swear when his sniper rifle goes toppling over the edge of his perch and shatters on the ground floor.

“Fuck this,” he says, fighting to catch his breath, and he launches himself over the railing. He hurtles towards the ground, glowering at the adventurer who cast the Circle of Death. A moment before his legs would shatter to pieces on the hard concrete ground, he waves his hand in the air and casts Feather Fall on himself.

With a quick roll, he’s back on his feet, inches away from the sorcerer.

It’s time for part two of Riz’s plan. Test his limits.

He lights his palms up with fire and plants them on the sorcerer. They catch the flesh aflame, filling the room with the smell of cooked meat. Riz lets go of their arm and jumps backwards, getting some distance while never dropping his eyes from his target.

If this adventurer is going to die today anyway, it might as well be to serve a purpose. He needs fodder for his tests and a body is a body. Nothing Riz does today could save this sorcerer’s life. He might as well take advantage of the chance to kill without qualms.

Some part of him raises a red flag when he has that thought. He pushes that ethical concern down. In another situation, someone might have the privilege to worry about things like morality but a Foxhound in a battleground is not granted that right.

Riz sees Fig and Fabian dance with the monk out of the corner of his eye. He trusts that they have themselves handled and focuses, instead, on the feeling of his magic pumping through his veins.

It’s like the energy has been begging to be let out since his last spell was cast. It’s pushing at the gates, ready to spill.

He’s happy to let it. He lets lightning arc off his fingertips, charring them, as the magic burns him as much as it burns the sorcerer. He keeps pulling at his stores of arcane energy, though, unsatisfied with just this small, insignificant amount of magic that he could’ve cast months ago.

He wants to see something new.

He pulls and pulls, covering himself in black, smoky electricity. His eyes squint, blinded by endless flashing lights. White to black to gray, lightning strike after lightning strike. He doesn’t even aim half of his bolts at the sorcerer, preferring to let them loose a few inches in either direction. He needs more time to build up the arcane energy. He needs to see how far he can take this.

“Need a hand?” Fabian asks.

Sparks fly from Riz’s hands, threatening to burn even his allies. “Don’t ruin my fun.” His magic is overflowing from his body. Glimmers of light pour out of his pores. He glows with an unnatural aura, brighter than a floodlight.

He wishes he could see himself right now.

Is he unrecognizable? It begs the question within a corner of his mind: in how many different ways could he become unfamiliar to himself in less than a year?

“You might want to cool down,” Kristen says.

Riz pulls deeper into his very soul for whatever strands of magic he has left in him. He feels an ache, worse than ever, as he expends the magic stored deep within him. “I have it under control,” he huffs. He grits his teeth in frustration as the sorcerer throws up a Shield, blocking his latest bolt of lightning. The electricity around Riz’s body builds and builds until he can see nothing but flashing lights.

He throws his hands out in front of him in a final release and sends every bit of lightning into the heart of the sorcerer. They don’t have a chance to scream before they fall to the ground in a limp, scorched heap.

Riz pants, suddenly exhausted. He tries to force his mouth closed, forces himself to breath through his nose, to cover for his debility. He feels his heart in his chest beat wrong. The beats are uneven, too many at once, then none for too long. Pain wracks through him. His eyes widen in fear. Has he gone somewhere he can’t come back from?

“Ugh, too easy,” Fig says, kicking the monk’s corpse. “I want something more fun next time.”

Riz looks at Gorgug in a panic, heart beating wildly in his chest.

Gorgug mouths, keep going.

Riz takes a single shaky breath and clocks back into the conversation. He rolls his eyes at Fig’s words and tries to shake the sparks of light left on his body to the floor as they sting his skin. His fingertips burn like he dipped them in acid. “You’re just jealous you didn’t get any kills.” Riz covers a gasp of pain with a cough as his body throbs with deep, aching hurt.

“Okay, Mister Kill Stealer. At least I’m a team player.”

With the help of this back-and-forth with Fig, Riz finds himself able to fall into his part of a Foxhound. “Hey, I’m doing what The Doctor told me to do.” He has a thought. If a security camera was still recording, could he leave clues about Project Foxhound? “I’m using my serum, 03. What are you doing?” He narrows his eyes at her, embodying the role of a team leader annoyed at his subordinate.

“Enjoying the show, mostly,” Fig laughs. “Don’t look so pissed off at me.”

Riz grits his teeth and tenses his shoulders. “I’m not covering for you with The Trainer,” he says, trying to be casual as he drops another clue as to the inner workings of Project Foxhound. He wonders if anything will even come of his trail of breadcrumbs.

Fig shrugs and kneels by the monk, brushing his hair off his face. She smirks down at him.

Fabian sprays the ground with blood as he wipes it off his face. “Are we our own extraction team?”

“As long as we’re not the clean up crew,” Gorgug replies, looking at the floor, drenched in blood.

Riz sighs, finally feeling his heart return to a steady rhythm. He starts, remembering The Director’s final order about today’s job.

He wonders how this’ll look on camera.

“Almost forgot the most important part,” Riz says and draws a dagger from his belt. His hands spill the last of their black, smoky lightning onto its blade.

Riz kneels down by the sorcerer’s charred body and wishes he was still blissfully disassociated from the morality of his actions. Instead, he has to feel every twist of the blade as he decapitates the adventurer.

He’ll pay for his actions one day, he knows it. He just hopes he can get his friends the hell out of Project Foxhound before that day comes.

“Long day,” Fabian says, falling backwards into his bed.

They had received upgrades recently, cots replaced with comfortable single mattresses waiting for them in their cell when he and Fabian returned from a mission.

Riz flops onto his, too, staring at the ceiling. He can’t lie and say he isn’t comfortable because he is. He’s well-fed and well-rested; he has warm showers and baths available at any hour of the day. He’s in shape and given everything he needs to stay able-bodied and strong. He feels good, he feels strong.

At least he can use that strength against The Sculptors. The gifts that they gave him, he’ll use every single one to escape their hold. He smiles idly, daydreaming about how incredible it’ll feel to take advantage of everything that The Sculptors gave him in direct opposition to them. He thinks back to his dad’s words again. The Sculptors are not your friends or your allies. When your head feels fuzzy, try to remind yourself of that. They’re his enemies now. They always have been. He just forgot that for a bit.

He’s going to miss his endless supply of books, given to him anytime he does something The Sculptors approve of. Which meant, of course, that he never stopped getting books in these past few months. He did exactly what they wanted of him, time after time, and reaped the rewards. He has a book of every genre imaginable on his bookshelf and a second bookshelf was just installed to house the overflow. The guards even chat with him about the books he’s been given, comparing opinions on the titles. It’s the most perverted book club he’s ever been a part of.

There’s so much he’ll miss. The regimented way that his days are organized appeals to a part of Riz’s brain that isn’t often satisfied. He likes having his schedule well-coordinated. He likes knowing what he’s doing each day, whether it’s training, team-bonding, Doctor visits, or just rest days. He can release a bit of stress from his own racing mind when someone else is there to tell him what to do and when to do it.

He’ll even miss the missions. He’s been so disassociated from the killings, the murders, he should say, that the missions have been nothing but satisfying challenges. Fulfilling ones. He gets to work hard and prove himself. He has a chance to stretch his muscles and practice his new skills and abilities. On his very first day in captivity, The Director told him that he would get as much out of this arrangement as The Sculptors would. She wasn’t entirely wrong. He’s grown and changed so much in these past few months that he doesn’t know how recognizable he is from his old self. He hasn’t seen a mirror since he was captured, after all.

If he looked into one now, would he see himself? Or a stranger?

He’s filled with guilt as he thinks of the last thing he’ll miss about his life as a Foxhound: the validation. He’s recognized for his hard work and competence and he’s regularly praised for it. He was made the team leader, after all, because of his abilities in the field and off of it. The Director saw something in him and nurtured it, making sure to feed into his sense of self-satisfaction. It was a manipulation tactic, Riz knows, but it’s an irresistible one. He doesn’t receive that kind of overt, gratifying validation in the outside world. Now that he knows what it feels like, he’s reluctant to give it up.

The missions, the structure, the augmentations, the rewards, the validation. They all tempt him into compliance. It would be so easy to just let himself fall back into his old self, the Foxhound, and let the world move around him. It would be easy to let The Sculptors serve his needs. It would be simple to follow their rules and meet their expectations.

But that temptation, that desire to stay, was programmed into him. He has to confront and resist those feelings that The Sculptors carefully implanted into his mind. He has to reach beyond them and refuse the title of a Foxhound.

He’s a Bad Kid, not a Foxhound. Riz repeats that thought over and over again like a mantra. He’s a Bad Kid and he always will be.

At least, he hopes so. He hopes he remembers how to be one.

But has he changed too much? Have The Sculptors changed him too severely? Will he ever return to who he once was?

He presses his eyelids closed and shakes his head, pulling himself out of his spiraling rumination. He’ll have time for panicked reflection in time but, until he escapes, he needs to stay clear headed.

He needs to focus.

He empties his mind and replaces one mantra with another. Over and over again, he repeats in his dad’s words. You’ll get out of there, I promise.

You can do this, kid.

“This will be your hardest challenge yet,” The Director says over the intercom in the back of the transport van. “These two adventurers are deadly combatants who will not be easily conquered. They are not to be underestimated.”

Riz nods sternly. He’s not to be underestimated either.

Today is the day, he decides. He’s going to escape the clutches of The Sculptors if it kills him.

He’s happy, actually, that the fight will be a formidable one. If he’s lucky, some of the Bad Kids will go down. He can’t take them all in a fight and he doesn’t think he could convince every one of them to go along with his escape plan.

Maybe some of them would be more agreeable than others but Fig and Fabian will certainly not go willingly. He can’t take them out on his own but maybe, just maybe, the current of the battle will flow in the right direction and help him out with that particular problem.

As long as he and Gorgug stay up, Riz can improvise the rest. He’s been playing out simulations of his escape in his head for the past week. He’s barely sleeping, only functional because of the infusions from The Doctor that give him enough energy to stand and fight.

It doesn’t matter. He can sleep when he’s free of Project Foxhound.

The Director continues to brief the team on the location they’ll be infiltrating: a narrow alley house in a small city’s downtown district. She doesn’t name the city. Riz hopes it’s well-populated with plenty of foot traffic. The more witnesses to their escape, the less likely it’ll be for The Sculptors to recapture them.

The van pulls into a parking structure and Adaine casts Greater Invisibility on each of them. They slide out of the car silently and begin their walk.

There’s plenty of foot traffic. It’s perfect. Today’s the fucking day, Riz thinks. This is it.

They pass city hall, then a library, a hospital, and an elementary school. Finally, their compass lights up green in front of a small house, squeezed between a drugstore and an apartment building, painted dark green.

“Let’s see what we’re working with,” Riz whispers into the comms. “Come around back.”

They squeeze around the back of the house and find a tiny yard with an empty dog house and a pergola over a back patio.

“We’re going to climb to the second floor and break open the window,” Riz orders. “06, take the lead and help us up. No need to waste Fly spells.”

He hears subtle shuffling as Kristen pulls herself up the pergola and settles in. “I’m reaching down, grab my hand.”

“04, you’re next.”

Riz quietly directs the others up to the patio’s roof one by one. Once everyone is settled on the top and the wood creaks dangerously, he takes a deep breath. He needs to be at his very best. It’s time.

“In three, two, one.”

Adaine blasts two windows open with Magic Missiles and the Foxhounds, the Bad Kids, Riz’s friends, burst through.

“One room to the left,” Adaine says, reporting on a vision. “They heard us.”

“They’ll be ready.”

“We’re ready, too,” Fig replies confidently. “Let’s fucking do this.”

The door to the large bedroom that they infiltrated flies open and two adventurers appear in the doorframe. One is swinging his sword before Riz can register that he’s under attack and the other blasts the cluster of Bad Kids with Faerie Fire, pulling them out of Invisibility.

“Focus the caster,” Riz commands. “05, you’re on the man. 06, keep him healed up.” Riz swears under his breath. Why is he still using codenames? How deep was this programming from The Sculptors that, in moments of stress, he thinks of his friends as numbers, not people?

Riz locks eyes with the caster and pulls his pistol. He shoots, missing her deliberately. Fabian shoots him a look but Riz frowns, performing for him. Fabian dives into the melee with his own sword and swings it in tight, quick arcs at the wizard who slams her back into the corner.

Riz swears again. He doesn’t like that she’s cornered and outnumbered. She needs to hold her own for a little longer.

He smiles when he sees her Blink out of existence and reappear behind Fabian, planting her Burning Hands on his shoulders. But his arms go limp for only a moment before he flips around, gritting his teeth, and tenses them up, returning to a combat stance. The wizard smirks and Misty Steps to the other adventurer’s side. She casts some sort of golden shield over the two of them, a spell Riz has never seen before.

Gorgug’s axe bounces harmlessly off of it.

“04, see what you can do.”

Adaine steps in and presses her hands against it, attempting to Counterspell. The spell fizzles out.

“Again,” Riz demands. “Try again.”

The wizard shoots a powerful blast of icy magic out of the shield and it connects with Kristen’s chest, dropping her to her knees. A crossbow bolt comes next, embedding in her shoulder. Another icy blue spell follows it and Kristen falls limp on the ground, frozen and immobilized in seconds.

Riz fights back a smile. Good. One of the loyalists is down. He hates to say it but he’s glad he doesn’t have to contend with Kristen when he turns. Now, she just needs to stay down.

Fig lowers herself to the ground next to Kristen and reaches out, a Cure Wounds at her fingertips.

Riz takes aim and shoots her in the foot.

“Fuck, sorry!” He says, too loud. “Misfire. I was lining up my shot.”

Gorgug gives him an apprehensive look. Riz returns his gaze with as much gravity as he can.

“Fucker,” Fig says. Riz can hear both humour and genuine annoyance in her voice. That’s fine; she could be annoyed at him. She just couldn’t be against him.

The shield goes down as Adaine dispels it successfully. Fabian and Gorgug instantly dive in, weapons swinging down at the two adventurers. If Riz angles a spell just right…

“05, fall back,” he orders Gorgug. He follows the command instantly, like he was waiting for it. The fighter takes the opportunity to take a swipe at Gorgug, slicing deeply across his forearm.

Riz gathers all the magic he can manage, channeling it from his blood to his fingertips, and conjures a Fireball, more potent and powerful than he’s ever cast before.

He drops it on the two adventurers.

The wizard goes down, a mess of blood and char.

And Fabian is an unfortunate but necessary casualty.

He’s not dead, Riz is sure. He’s too strong for that. But, with the hits he already took, he’s certainly not in this fight any longer.

Two loyalists down in less than two minutes.

Fig flies at him with fire in her eyes. They burn like embers and it’s the most light he’s seen on her face in months.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She grips her flute like she’s preparing to slam it over Riz’s head.

Riz stumbles back. He knew that she wouldn’t be pleased but he hoped things wouldn’t turn to infighting in the middle of a battle.

“We have an enemy combatant, 03. Focus up.”

“Focus up, focus up, maybe if you were focusing, you wouldn’t have taken out Fabian.”

“We always complete the mission, 03, even if injuries do occur.” Riz mirrors The Trainer’s words and hopes that the reminder of The Sculptor’s doctrine will refocus Fig on the fight.

She twitches, as if her body is trying to force her to obey the command, but she doesn’t turn around to fight the remaining combatant. Her eyes stay locked on Riz’s and she flexes her jaw, grinding her teeth together.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you bu—”

A sword goes through Fig’s shoulder, inches from her lungs. Riz flinches at the sudden appearance of the blade. “Fig, focus!” He shouts, forgetting codenames in his panic. She flips around with the blade still embedded in her shoulder, slicing herself open further. The fighter pulls his sword from her and Fig stumbles, falling to her knee.

“Shit.” Riz wanted her down, yes, but it was frightening seeing three of his friends fall in combat so close together. “04, Hold Person.”

Adaine casts it as blood continues to pour from Fig. She falls forward, barely catching herself with one hand. She lays down slowly, eyelids drifting shut.

Not dead, Riz reminds himself. She’s not dead. She’s certainly no longer in fighting shape, though, which is exactly where Riz wanted her, the last inarguable loyalist.

“Gorgug, Adaine, stay back,” Riz says, giving his final order as the leader of the Foxhounds. 

The fighter is standing and he’s standing strong. He looks like he could tank another ten minutes of combat against the six of them and remain in good working order.

They don’t have ten minutes and they don’t have six party members anymore, either.

Riz pulls on his arcane power, coils it around himself in spirals of black lightning. He summons the smoky electricity out of the air and collects it with the magic within his own blood. His fingers burn and burn with fire. He can see them char, covered in deep black ash.

He keeps summoning, keeps gathering, keeps conjuring, until he can see nothing but lightning flashing in his eyes.

He feels unsteady on his feet, all his focus on the arcane power at his fingertips. With a final yank on the thread of his soul, he pulls the last of the magic he can find out of his body and throws it at the fighter.

The room explodes with a clap of thunder, rupturing one of Riz’s eardrums. He falls to his knees, set off balance by the sudden lack of energy cocooning him. What’s left of the fighter’s body falls, too, filling the room with ash and char.

Riz can only hear his heart beating. It’s not a steady, regular thumping like he would expect. It’s erratic, seeming to only beat when it wants to, when it’s been too long without a beat. Then, it begins to beat too fast. Like a hummingbird’s wings, it explodes into a rhythm that sends hot blood flying through his veins.

Better too much circulation than not enough, Riz thinks, and pushes himself to his feet.

He blinks heavily, trying to clear the gray out of the corners of his eyes. He looks around the room, freezing when he sees Adaine.

She’s fixed in place with a petrified look in her eyes.

Riz nods. She’s scared.

She’s been scared for months.

“Adaine, you have to make a choice right now.”

“Codenames, 01,” Adaine whispers.

Riz grimaces. The programming runs deep in her and he doesn’t have time to unwrite it. But he has to make an effort.

“No. Your name is Adaine Abernant.” Riz asserts and Adaine flinches at the sound of her name. “You’re not a number. You're not a Foxhound, either. You're a kid, you're a daughter, you're a friend, and above all else, you're a Bad Kid. We all are”

“No, no. Why are you saying all that?” Adaine stammers over her words, panic lacing her voice. “Is this a set up? Some sort of act and I’m supposed to prove I’m loyal? Because I am, I’m loyal, I swear.”

“It’s not a test, Adaine,” Gorgug says, voice warm and calm. “We’re done with tests.”

“It’s an out,” Riz declares.

Adaine shakes her head. “No. No, we can’t.”

“Adaine. We’re getting out of here.”

“It’s time,” Gorgug adds. “Are you with us?”

Riz holds his breath. Adaine shakes with nerves. He goes on. “You don’t have to be scared anymore. They controlled you through your fear but you never really believed in what they were saying, did you? You were just so afraid that you went along with things because, what might happen if you didn’t? Adaine, if we escape, you’ll never have to be afraid again.

“Please, Adaine. Let’s get out of here.”

Adaine shakes. Riz holds his breath.

She nods, just once.

It’s enough.

Once his speech was finished, Riz was hit with a sudden wave of tiredness. The adrenaline of the battle had faded and he was left with a body that felt like it was failing. His heart is still unsteady, alternating between beating too fast and too slow. He can feel it palpitate, sending waves of discomfort through his body. His chest aches. The pain is nothing, though, compared to his fingers. They burn like he just spent thirty minutes pressing them into a stovetop. He’s sure they should’ve gone numb by now but, somehow, the pain persists.

He’s dizzy and nauseous, like he overexerted himself. He certainly overextended himself, using his magic like he never had before. He’s sure that he drew on his own life force when attempting to cast a spell as powerful as he did. He wonders if he’ll ever get that bit of his life back or if he’ll forever be working at a deficit.

He stalks down the sidewalk, covered in char and sprays of blood, behind Gorgug and Adaine. Over Adaine’s shoulder, Fig hangs limply. Gorgug carries both Kristen and Fabian. He hunches over from the weight but walks vigorously forward.

It’s all Riz can do to keep up pace with him.

He tastes metal. His stomach is sick.

“I can try to carry someone,” Riz says, speaking into a comm that’s no longer in his ear. They stripped their gear off—concerned about trackers—and left it in the alley house with the two, still-warm corpses. Riz feels naked without the weight of it all on his back.

He prays that neither Adaine or Gorgug will take him up on the offer to help. He thinks he’ll keel over dead if he has to carry anything more than his own body weight right now.

“You’re good,” Gorgug grunts.

Riz sighs in relief. He plants one foot in front of the other. Every step, he thinks will be his last. He doesn’t think he can make it the eleven blocks that he needs to walk.

But he was a Foxhound and he is a Gukgak which means he’s tougher than nails. So he pushes past the weakness and the fatigue and does his job.

The three Bad Kids left standing stumble into the lobby of Peonie Hearts Hospital.

Riz is panting. He’s convinced that he’s moments away from dissolving into ash and floating away on the air conditioned air. He can’t breathe.

He’s so tired.

“We need help,” Gorgug says to the receptionist.

She raises both eyebrows, shocked, maybe even a little afraid. Riz doesn’t blame her. Three bloodied children with death in their eyes walk into a hospital, carrying three bodies. No one is prepared for a sight like this one.

“Please,” Riz adds.

“You, um, do you… you look young,” the receptionist blurts out. “Do you have a guardian? Someone I could call?”

Riz tries to focus on her face but he finds it hard. Black fills the edges of his vision. Was his nanomask malfunctioning? He taps his temple twice but he already removed it back in the alley house. He frowns. “Her name is Sklonda Gukgak,” Riz says, fighting through his rapidly narrowing vision. He grabs the pen on the receptionist’s desk and scribbles down her phone number. “And this is her phone number. Plea—”

Riz doesn’t even realize he’s passing out until he feels the painful impact of his skull on the hospital floor.

His last thought is how his dad would be proud of him. He remembered all three of his lessons.

MOM: Have fun at your friends’ house, honey.

MOM: Let me know if you need anything!

MOM: Or if you just want to talk. About whatever you might want to talk about.

MOM: I’m here for anything you need, Riz.

MOM: Okay, sorry, I’ll let you be. Love you lots, kid.

Riz is torn between smiling at the outpouring of care from his mom and crying because of it. He hadn’t experienced real, true love for seven months, nor care without strings attached. He forgot what it felt like. Now, it’s so unfamiliar that he doesn’t know how to feel.

He hates to admit how it makes him uncomfortable, like there’s a shoe waiting to drop and he’ll be crushed by it if he lets himself bask in the warmth of this offered love.

RIZ: thanks, mom

He leaves it at that.

Riz shifts his focus to the other voices in the room. Five Bad Kids trying to decide what to watch for tonight’s movie marathon. It’s not the familiar friendly arguments of the past, though. It’s stilted silences and careful words delivered quietly. It’s an awkward electricity in the air that hasn’t gone away for weeks.

The electrical energy in the air only worsens when, suddenly, tiny arcs of black lightning spark to life on Riz’s forearms. He rolls his sleeves down. If he can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist.

He pretends like these flare-ups don’t worry him. It’s easier than the alternative.

Riz is so hungry. He’s been hungry for a few hours and he knows that the fridge is full of food but he can’t make himself get up and take something for himself. He hasn’t had the ability to choose his own meal in seven months, two weeks, and four days. He doesn’t remember how to do it. No, he doesn’t feel brave enough to do it. What if someone gets mad at him?

What if he’s punished?

Riz touches his throat idly. There’s no collar there. There hasn’t been in a long time. Still, the fear that it built within him is ever present. The programming to expect punishment upon disobedience is so deeply rooted in Riz that he sometimes forgets how to be a person. He remembers how to be a number, a cog, a Foxhound. But he doesn’t really feel like a person anymore.

The first time Riz looked into a mirror when he returned home, he anticipated having a breakdown. What would he see? And who?

He didn’t break down. But he didn’t process a single thing reflected back at him. Five minutes later, when he tried to conjure a picture of himself in his head, he realized he had no idea what he saw. Either he had dissociated through the process or he had instantly blocked out the memory. Either way, he was too scared to look in another mirror since. For the second time in three years, he asked his mom to cover up every mirror in the house.

She hadn’t asked any questions. She was good like that.

His mom was scared, though, Riz could tell. He doesn’t know what happened to her while he was gone but she seemed different, too. In his life, he’s seen her mad, he’s seen her irritated, and he’s seen her upset, but he’s never seen her scared before. Now, she was terrified to let him out of her sight. He tried to tell her that he’s more capable than ever at keeping himself safe but that hadn’t seemed to sway her away from her fear.

The only times she let him out on his own was if he was with the other Foxhounds.

Bad Kids.

He mentally berates himself for the mistake. There were still days where he referred to his best friends as numbers before catching himself. He didn’t know what caused those bad days, the ones where he still lived in the past, but they didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Other days were better. He just hopes for more good days than bad ones.

Fabian and Fig were getting better, too. Riz was right that Fig’s fiery outburst during their final mission was a good thing. She was becoming herself again. The longer it’s been since their Circletting, the more of their old selves they become. They have bad days, too, though. Days where they’re furious at Riz for tearing them away from their home.

Riz has days where he thought of the facility as his home, too. He’ll wake up in bed and wonder where his bookshelves are and why his room doesn’t have a glass wall on one side. It’s always a disorienting feeling, missing a cell. But that cell was home. It was made his home. Wasn’t he allowed to miss it?

If he thinks too long about the things he misses, though, he’ll lose himself in regret. He shakes his head and tries to focus on the here-and-now.

“Are you hungry, kids?” Jawbone asks and Riz’s mouth waters. Thank the gods, he thinks.

“Yes, sir,” Adaine replies, then slams her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I—sorry.”

Jawbone’s eyes flash with pain before he covers it up with a smile. “You’re okay. Let me bring you all some food.”

Riz sighs in relief. Maybe if he’s well fed, he won’t lose himself in memories of the past seven months.

A part of him knows that’s not how things work. He silences that cold, logical part of his brain. He doesn’t need to be an operative anymore, nor a team leader.

If he has his way, he’ll never give the Bad Kids another order in his life. It makes him nauseous just to think about how many times he commanded one of them to end someone’s life.

And who, exactly, were they killing? His mom tries to keep information about Project Foxhound away from him but the news is covering it on every avenue. He sees articles on his crystal, hears interviews on the radio, and watches news segments on the television. Everyone is talking about Project Foxhound and the corruption within the Solisian government.

Which means everyone is talking about the victims of the Foxhounds, too. Riz was glad to know that some were heinous killers, but others were innocent adventurers who just happened to get too close to something the Solisian government didn’t want them to uncover.

He hates reading about those adventuring parties, yet he seeks out information about them anyway.

He’s addicted to reading their eulogies.

His mom has caught him, too many times, scrolling down his crystal at 3:00 A.M., reading anything he can find about the people he killed. He’s always shaking with guilt and regret, bundled under his blankets.

He hasn’t cried yet, though. Instead, numbness has overtaken his nervous system. He doesn’t cry; he barely even smiles. He’s a good agent, a good pawn, a good Foxhound, but certainly not a good friend or a good son.

He wishes he remembered how to be those things.

Riz pulls out his crystal and navigates to the Bastion City News website and searches for Project Foxhound. He reads the latest headline.

THE MASTERMINDS BEHIND PROJECT FOXHOUND HAVE DISAPPEARED, ALONG WITH THE FOXHOUNDS THEMSELVES. WHERE HAVE THEY GONE? TUNE IN AT 7:00 P.M. FOR MORE INFORMATION

“Can we watch the news?” Riz asks. Everyone sighs with relief. He knows exactly why: they’ve been wanting someone else to be the one to choose. After almost seven months of following directions, coming up with their own decisions feels near impossible. Riz knows because he feels the same way. He goes home and begs his mom to tell him what to do. She says that she can’t do that to him after what he’s been through.

He wishes she could understand.

He knows why she can’t.

“Sure,” Kristen says, twirling the remote in her hands. “Foxhound stuff?”

“Ideally.”

She flips through channels until she finds one talking about the Ministry of Public Safety.

“Have they always been corrupt? Did the head of the Ministry know what was happening right under his nose?” A newscaster asks. “And, more importantly, what will they do now?”

Another newscaster responds. “There is no word as to where the Foxhounds are today. They were caught on camera just once and no one matching their descriptions has been seen again. Facial recognition technology was used, however, no matches were found. Citizens of Solace are concerned about what that means for their safety. Could the Foxhounds be living amongst them?”

“Reports say that the Solisian government is now recruiting for a team of adventurers designed to find the missing heads of Project Foxhound and capture them, so that they may be brought to justice.”

Riz stops listening. He’s busy thinking about The Director, The Trainer, and The Doctor. The nation will be looking for them but Riz doubts any civilian or adventurer will have any luck on that quest. Even if the Solisian government puts together a team specially designed to find them, The Sculptors are too slippery to be caught by just anyone.

Not just anyone.

But Riz knows of six people who might have a chance.

THE END