Accessing Revenant Squad Database...

  Establishing direct connection to Railstorm...

  Downloading timeline data...

  Opening file...

  Data file R-1: “Revenant Squad”

  [Revenant Squad is Embershard’s third military strike squad, organized under Queen Sophia’s rule. It is led by Prince Matthew Archmal (Rasil), with Royal Scientist Gibson Kreelek (Gears) as his lieutenant. Helios, after his pardon, was assigned to the team as its third member and recon specialist.

  Strike Commander Rasil is tasked with submitting periodic data files on various happenings.]

  ***

  “I just think you take too many risks," Gears said through the comlink.

  “No such thing," Rasil replied. He promptly kicked another racazoid trooper to the ground before firing his pistol into its face. The trooper fell, just like the rest of its squad. “Helios never challenges me on this," Rasil commented.

  Helios gave a small snicker while Gears simply grumbled, “That’s only because he has a sick mind too. You’re both reckless.”

  Helios grinned as best he could with a beak; the mechanical bird took pride in his crazed methods. Such a personality was no doubt a side effect of being built by Icarus Blade. Terran Knights seemed to have a pattern of defying common sense and often protocol as well.

  Rasil leaned against a metal wall as Helios searched from above, his eyes scanning for more enemies. When he returned, he flew from his perch to Rasil’s shoulder and whispered, “All clear.”

  “Perfect," Rasil breathed, holstering his pistol. Another racazoid skirmish done in less than sixty seconds. These outpost patrols were getting strangely easy, directionless. Flameye’s death had certainly weakened their tactics.

  Rasil slipped out of the alleyway and into the street. Immediately, he felt uneasy on the barren road with sparse lights along the walkways. The fog of the nearby ocean stretched its cold hands across the sleeping city, while the water canals echoed every sound Rasil made. Outpost E-32 is a beautiful city during the day. At night, it bears an empty feeling. The foundation of evil is often darkness, and with how often racazoids attacked it, E-32 never disappointed those expecting evil.

  Walking down the street, though, Rasil easily began to calm himself and think. It had been almost a year since the racazoids’ leader was killed and the time-altering Shadowbane Amulet was destroyed. Yet the racazoids, even leaderless, proved overall resilient. They were less like an army now and more akin to a swarm that wouldn’t be deterred. Rasil had little complaint, though; patrolling for them gave him an excuse to avoid the more formal obligations of being a prince.

  Perhaps more prudent, he also knew they weren’t targeting civilians when Flameye’s wartime methodology was absent.

  “Have you tried the new shielding system at least?” Gears grumbled.

  “Armor, I’ll pass.”

  “Energy armor, Rasil! It’s energy armor! It wouldn’t even weigh you down!”

  “Doesn’t mean I want it.” Rasil kept to himself that an antigravity generator powerful enough to protect him would legitimately be heavier than Gears’s estimates. He figured he’d rather be seen as obstinate than debate a genius’s well-intentioned calculations.

  “Mark my words, Rasil. One day, you will have to rely on something other than your own skill.”

  “That’ll be the day someone hits me," Rasil chuckled. “Name one time since Flameye.”

  Rasil picked up his pace and ran to where the Spearhead had landed nearby. When he walked up the ramp and into the chopper, Gears looked again at his unarmored equipment and scoffed loudly. Being an expert scientist and engineer, he would always lecture Rasil on the safety of his methods. In Gears’s mind, Rasil’s safety took precedence over every other task he was given, even if Rasil never seemed to appreciate it.

  Rasil did appreciate it.

  Gears spoke with an air of concerned authority at all times, but to Rasil, he would always remain a trusted friend. Helios saw the scoff, landed on Rasil’s shoulder, and responded to Gears with a hiss. Gears glared as he closed the ramp, then sat down in the pilot’s seat to fly them to our next patrol location. Helios jumped to the dashboard and began an elaborate game of tug-of-war with the control stick. His talons nudged it towards him every few seconds, while Gears kept recentering it while glancing at the navigation controls.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Where to?” Rasil asked when the two had quit their jabs at each other.

  “We’re heading back to Embershard Keep," Gears said, turning his pilot’s chair around to face Rasil slowly.

  “I thought we’d be away for three weeks this time," Rasil questioned, remembering the long period they had spent preparing before they left the safety of the castle back home. Gears’s eyes were narrowed slightly, like he knew a valuable secret and wasn’t sure how to share it. Something wasn’t right here.

  What he meant dawned on Rasil suddenly. “You didn’t!” he cried.

  “I did," Gears triumphantly remarked.

  “Not another one!” Rasil yelled at the ceiling.

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “Government meetings are so boring," Rasil said while covering his face with his hands. “And there’s always a party afterwards...”

  “But at least there is absolutely no fighting, patrolling, or world-saving to do at them," Gears reasoned.

  “As I said, they’re boring.”

  ***

  For the entire flight back to Embershard, Rasil still tried to get out of it.

  Gears gripped the controls tighter, a momentary twitch of frustration as he said, “I’m acting under Queen Sophia’s orders, her orders to get you home and ready for the formalities.”

  “Tell her I’m sick.”

  “You always say that.”

  “Tell her I’m busy.”

  “She knows you’re not.”

  “Tell her I’m her big brother.”

  “Only by three minutes.”

  “Helios... help, please?”

  “Boss, even Icarus had to do these things...” Helios replied.

  “Blasted formalities...” Rasil finally conceded. This was going to be a complete pain, he was certain.

  Just then, he felt the chopper stop and realized they had landed, which he would have known sooner if he hadn’t been covering his face for the entire trip. The three quickly got up and walked down the ramp into the hangar, where General Jason and Queen Sophia were waiting.

  Sophia saw Rasil and started to run to him, without grabbing her staff from Jason. Jason, of course, grabbed her shoulder, almost yanking her clear off the ground, then he placed the staff in her hands and released her. Right on cue, she tripped and nearly fell before throwing her weight against the staff and catching herself. With a quiet sigh, she kept walking. Every time, it seemed...

  Rasil and Sophia hugged briefly before she whispered, “You have to wear something other than that to the meeting.”

  “Why?” Rasil asked as he looked at his clothes. Minus the burn marks, the jacket and cape were spotless, and his combat boots were actually shining. He was impressively well-dressed for someone who had been fighting racazoids until sundown.

  “The meeting has a party on the side," she sighed.

  “Dang it.” Not just after, but during as well, he’d have to wait uselessly.

  “Wear something else, please?”

  “I’ll give it a shot," he said, remembering that he could probably get away with wearing royal armor.

  “Rasil,” she asked as she pushed him away and spoke at a normal volume, “Please don’t punch anyone this time.”

  “I can’t help it," he said. “If push comes to shove, shove comes to punch.”

  “Just TRY, Matthew; I believe in you,” she said. Then she raised her hand to her face and stifled a laugh before sending him on his way.

  ***

  After talking with Sophia and walking upstairs to the top of Embershard Keep’s spire, Rasil opened the door to his old bedroom. The boxes that had contained discarded weapon ideas, carved wood pieces, spare knives, and too many data file readers were gone. Rasil shook his head just a little bit, not completely dismayed. Sophia had “ruined” it by cleaning it and moving everything around, so he had to search for all of his things, but she cared about maintaining it. That was worth the extra time. He found the correct spot, pulled out the black-colored royal armor he hadn’t worn since he was twelve years old. Convenient, that it was adjustable and somehow still fit. More convenient that he could still wear his cape with it, so aesthetics didn’t leave the equation.

  While he was trying it on, he felt something warm in his pocket. He promptly laid the remaining pieces aside, reached into his pocket, and grasped his shard of the Shadowbane Amulet. Then, after his fingers touched the circuitry, he gasped with surprise. He could feel... warmth from it, like a computer heating up after use. He removed it fully from the pocket, found the part of the broken piece that was once the Amulet’s left edge, and unfastened the front panel of the device.

  It was moving.

  The Amulet’s gears and circuits were indeed moving and functioning as if they had never been broken.

  Then it stopped, reacting to Rasil seeing its interior, perhaps. It silenced its functions, and the heat went away.

  Rasil reattached the panel and placed the shard on his desk. He looked at it again and whispered, “What in the world are you?”

  He was asking the wrong question.

  He would soon learn he should have been asking, “What in the universe made you?”