A Call to Darkness (Book 1 of Calling All Heroes)

Night Storm

The heroes made their way downtown, closing in on the signal from Deceit's watch, when it happened. There was a loud explosion from across town. A black cloud of smoke rose into the sky. The four men stopped and stared in the direction of the explosion.

"Night and I will go help out. You and Duke go find, Deceit," Roman said to Logic. The other hero hesitated a moment before nodding his head.

Remus and Logan continues to follow the signal from Olav's watch while Roman and Virgil turned and headed back in the direction of the explosion.

When they arrived they were relieved to see that it was an old dilapidated building that had been the source of the explosion. They still made their way into the building to make sure there were no casualties.

"Hello? Is anyone in here?" Roman called out as they cautiously made their way through the smoke and...surprising lack of debris.

"Prince. I don't like this. We need to get out of here. Now." The darkly dresses man said, backing towards the door they had come in.

"What if someone is injured and needs our help, Night? We can't just leave them here."

"Prince! There is no fire! There is no debris! My senses are going crazy in here! We're in danger!"

"I will admit that the lack of fire and debris is confusing. But, there's a lot of smoke, Night. Someone could still be injured."

"Like you," came a voice from behind the princely hero. He turned quickly in the direction and was thrown across the room, falling unconscious when he hit the brick wall on the other side.

"Prince!" Virgil made his way over to the other hero only to be knocked unconscious before he reached him.

***

"Prince! Prince, wake up!"

Roman groaned and held his head, wincing in pain as he opened his eyes, surprised when he saw Logic standing in front of him. "Wh-what happened?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing. The Duke and I got a notification that you were injured on our watches. We came as soon as we could."

"Where's, Night Storm?" Olav asked, walking over to Roman and Logan.

"They found you!" The Prince stood up and nearly fell over, grabbing Logan's shoulder for support.

"Easy, Roman."

"Kinda. I met up with them when I got the notification as well. Where is Night Storm?"

"I don't know. Someone or something threw me across the room. Everything went dark pretty quickly. The next thing I knew you guys were here."

"Deceit!" Remus was standing on the other side of the room, where Roman had been thrown from and was staring at the wall.

"What is it?" Deceit asked, running over to the other hero.

"Why is your snake symbol here?" He asked, pointing to the image etched into the stone wall.

Deceit looked at the symbol and paled slightly. "It's not my symbol. The head is facing the wrong direction, love. Come on. We need to find Night Storm." He turned and walked back towards Roman, a confused Remus following.

***

Virgil let out a soft groan and rubbed his head. Or at least he would have rubbed his head if his arms weren't strapped to the chair he was currently in. "The hell?" He grunted as he tried to fight against the restraints.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you, Virgil. You could really hurt yourself."

His head shot up and he glared at the person who was talking to him. A man with half a snake face. He must've been the guy who grabbed Patton. But, there was something off about the left side of his face. Something oddly familiar.

"I'm going to need you to deactivate his watch, Patton. Wouldn't want the others spoiling our fun. Now would we?"

Patton limped forward, eyes glazed over, and deactivated Virgil's watch before removing it.

"Patton..." Virgil's voice was barely above a whisper. "What did you do to him you sick fuck?!" He turned his attention back to his captor and growled angrily at him.

"Tsk tsk tsk. Such language will not do, Virgil," he walked closer and smiled when he saw the look of anger on Virgil's face turn to one of confusion mixed with horror.

"O-Olav...?"

Bedrag chuckled and shook his head. "Not exactly. He and I do have a lot in common. But he is not me. And I am not completely him. And to answer your earlier question I didn't do anything to Patton...yet. He's just a bit more cooperative right now. He didn't start cooperating until you got here though." He walked over to a console behind the chair and started pressing a few buttons. "Now, let's see how much you're willing to cooperate."

Virgil shrieked in pain as currents of electricity courses through his body from the chair he was strapped to. Tears ran down his cheeks and his breath came in laboured gasps when the current ceased.

"Did that hurt, Virgil?"

"Go to hell."

"I'll take that as a yes. It will hurt less eventually." He started the machine again.

Virgil's screams echoed through the building. Patton stood before him, though his eyes and face were blank, tears ran down his cheeks as he watched his friend suffer.

"Wh-why are you doing this?" Virgil gasped out when the machine stopped again.

"Your friend Olav took something important from me. So, I've decided to take something important from him."

What seemed like days, but was in fact only a couple of hours, later Bedrag released Virgil from the chair and tossed him into an empty room. "We'll see how well your treatment went in the morning, Virgil. Until then...sleep well." He closed the door and then sent Patton to his own room before sending a text to Olav.

B: One down. One to go.