Post by Toz76 on Mar 31, 2023 18:40:13 GMT -5
FIFTEEN YEARS BEFORE THE RISE OF THE HORNED ONE
Martin Ricketts stared at himself intensely in the mirror. His dark blue uniform was ironed and pressed, his hair was neatly combed, and his badge was polished to a shine. He saluted himself, watching his uniform for any creases in the fabric.
“Praeventorus adversus tyrannis. I am a vanguard against tyranny.”
Martin’s fiancé, Laura, peered into the bedroom, giggling. “Are you going to admire yourself in the mirror all day, or are you going to come down for breakfast?”
Martin blushed. “Sorry, babe. I got a little carried away.”
“No, don’t apologize, it’s cute!” Laura leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Your first day as a full Majika Supremus paladin. No more “Junior Paladin”, no more being babysat on missions. It’s a big deal.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten this far without your support, my love.” Martin replied.
“Oh, you big sap.” Laura giggled. “Come on, your eggs are getting cold.”
Martin ate slowly, careful not to get anything on his uniform. He watched the morning news as he ate. The Magic Underground News Network aired 24/7, providing up-to-the-minute updates on the news for the mage community. Today, the top story was some fluff about drama in the Magic Underground High Council, which was more or less a constant, so: slow news day.
After finishing his meal, brushing his teeth, and kissing his wife goodbye, he finally set off on the kilometer-long walk to work. There was a magic tram line that would take him right to his headquarters, but Ricketts liked the exercise.
The sky of the Magic Underground was its usual bizarre gray static. Created in the 50s as a pocket dimension for mages to live separate from “the others”, it now boasted a population over 300,000, by far the biggest community of mages in the world. The air was always a bit stuffy and the bizarre empty sky took some getting used to, but Ricketts had lived there his whole life and wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.
The streets were fairly empty out here in the “suburbs”, with most already having gone to work. Ricketts gave a friendly wave to an old woman watering her plants with some water magic. When his path crossed with a group of kids on their way to school, they all stood ramrod-straight and gave him a salute, and he gave them one right back. The uniform commands respect.
Before long, suburban houses gave way to small convenience stores. A suit of Enchanto-Armor, a magic construct built by the savant Reginald Walkins to patrol the streets in lieu of humans, stood at attention at a street corner. Ricketts took the opportunity to glare at the thing as he passed. Robots could never replace the paladins of Majika Supremus, he thought bitterly. They simply don’t have the ability to react quickly in difficult situations that a real human does.
Finally, he approached the center of town, where towering buildings soared overhead. Fancy hotels, corporate headquarters, and penthouse apartments for the magic 1%. And finally, the center of the underground, Cooperation Park. A massive natural space inspired by Central Park in the normal world, bordered by museums and government buildings, with a massive tower at the center where the magic keeping the Underground intact is channeled. Ricketts took the scenic route through the park, past a statue commemorating the Constantinople Accords and the Tesseract Victim Memorial Fountain, before finally emerging from a small wooded path outside Majika Supremus Dispatch Center.
A small crowd of protesters was gathered outside, as they were most days. Probably from the nearby college, Ricketts guessed. Today, they were holding signs that said “Free Van Scoy” and “Fuck Majikal Supremacists”.
One of the protesters shouted at him as he passed. “Hey, pig! Gonna arrest any more innocents without a trial today?”
Ricketts sighed patiently. “Young lady, Van Scoy is being temporarily detained on suspicion of selling illegal magic artifacts to normals. He’s no angel. The Magic Underground needs to be kept a secret from the normal world.”
“Like hell it does!” replied the protester. “There’s no reason to keep the existence of magic secret!”
“I understand your frustration, but that simply isn’t true.” Ricketts replied, maintaining an even tone. “Surely you know why we had to go underground in the first place. The Church was terrified of mages, and they tried to exterminate us. And in response, famine magic was used to kill thousands. Separating the two worlds was the only way to keep them both safe.”
“But that was hundreds of years ago!” the protester countered. “It’s the 21st century now. We should be using our magic to cure disease and end world hunger. But instead, you insist on hoarding it, keeping humanity in the dark!”
The other protesters cheered at that.
Ricketts had heard this talking point before, though. “Do you really think the wider world is ready to accept magic? They still struggle to accept basic things like religious differences. Imagine how they’d react if they found out that magic was real on top of all that? They’d invade the Underground with their guns and nukes and it’d all be over. It’s true that magic won’t stay hidden forever. But we can’t force these things. It’ll happen when the normals are truly ready to accept us, and not before. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of work to do today defending your freedoms.”
Ricketts turned and walked away. The protester yelled after him, saying things like “No one asked you to defend us!”, “What about what the people want?”, and other such talking points, but Ricketts felt like he’d won the high ground in that exchange.
********
Majika Supremus was founded hundreds of years ago in Constantinople, as a force of mages meant to protect the world by detaining and prosecuting those who would use magic for evil. The only way to stop a bad guy with a spell is a good guy with a spell, after all, or at least it was until guns were invented.
The faction flourished for many years. When magic was forced underground in the 1600s, Majika Supremus shifted focus slightly, from merely stopping magical crime to preserving the barriers between the two worlds. It wasn’t an easy task, especially in those days of global exploration, but Majika Supremus managed to keep the normals blessedly unaware of magic for centuries.
Then came war. The 97 Years’ War, a series of small conflicts that built up and intertwined until Majika Supremus could no longer remain neutral. Under the leadership of Martin’s great-grandfather, Alan Rickets, Majika Supremus became one of the power players in the war, up until Alan’s assassination in 1950 by unknown radicals. Then, two years later, things went too far. Each side secretly prepared a deadly weapon, a tesseract, an inescapable prison that keeps those trapped inside in a state of agony for all time. The other side struck first, wiping out the entire leadership of the Bloodless Blade, one of Majika Supremus’s foremost allies. In response, the faction unleashed their tesseract on a population of necromancers based in Cairo, and accidentally destroyed one of the Pyramids of Giza and was caught on film. By the end of the week, every news source in the world was reporting on the destruction of the Pyramid of Djedefre by “wizards”, and it took the combined efforts of Majika Supremus and their enemies to erase memories, destroy film, and forge ancient documents to say that there were always only three pyramids at Giza.
After realizing that both sides had gone too far, they came to the negotiation table and hashed out an agreement. The results are generally agreed to have led to the global magic community as it exists today, with the creation of the Magic Underground, a pocket dimension accessible throughout the globe where mages could live openly, separate from normals. But Majika Supremus got the short end of the stick in the 1953 Tesseract Treaties. Their previous abilities to operate globally, as established by the Constantinople Accords, was gutted, as other factions wanted the ability to police their own regions. Majika Supremus was suddenly limited to mainland Europe, the Middle East, and the British Commonwealth, and their High Council and House of Debate were disbanded in favor of a new parliament formed by representatives from mage factions globally. Of course, they still operated illegally in places like the Americas when they thought they could get away with it, but the risks of reprisal from the other factions wasn’t worth it. Majika Supremus remained one of the foremost magical organizations in the world, but among their ranks is a clear and unambiguous resentment of their lost greatness.
This is all just to say that while this was Martin Ricketts was starting his first day as a full paladin, he still commanded many looks of respect and awe as he entered the Dispatch Center. To many, Alan Ricketts’ assassination was the moment that Majika Supremus fell from grace, and Martin was the heir to his great-grandfather’s legacy, the man who would make Majika Supremus great once again.
If only they all knew.
Martin headed straight for the briefing room, where the other paladins were milling around, getting coffee and waiting for their assignments. A pair of Enforcers, the elite paladins with their deep green uniforms and tactical combat wands, stood at the front of the room, preparing for some sort of deadly mission.
At 9:00 exactly, Darius Al-Hallaq entered the room. An absolute mountain of a man, he was the head paladin for this division, a man with 35 years of service under his belt and no signs of slowing down. His scarred face surveyed the room as he approached the podium.
“Attention!” Al-Hallaq shouted. The paladins all turned towards him and saluted as one, before taking their seats.
“Before we begin our briefing, some congratulations are in order for our newest paladin, Martin Ricketts.” Al-Hallaq paused as raucous applause broke out. After indulging the room for a few seconds, he gestured for silence. “Praeventorus adversus tyrannis, Paladin Ricketts, and welcome to the force. Make us proud.”
Al-Hallaq turned to the board behind him, where a series of wanted photos, police sketches, and evidence reports were pinned up. “We’ve got a lot going on today, paladins. Crime doesn’t sleep, and neither do we. I’ve got a mission in Canada, and I need six paladins who aren’t gonna pussy out at a little blood.”
Nearly every hand in the room went up, including Ricketts.
Al-Hallaq surveyed the room, deciding who to send. “Odoye, Larrabee, W. Spiffit, Randow, Ricketts, Dominguez. Head to briefing room 248. Researcher My will brief you on the situation.”
Ricketts was genuinely surprised to be chosen. He followed the other paladins down a winding hallway until they reached the room, where Researcher My, a mousy man with unkempt hair, was waiting, pacing anxiously.
“Ah, good, you must be the team,” My said. “You’ll be working under Enforcer Blanc on this mission. He’ll join us later.” My fumbled with a computer, pulling up a powerpoint on a projector at the far end of the room. A photo of a sullen-looking man with bleached hair appeared.
“This is our target,” My said, launching into a clearly scripted briefing. “He goes by a number of names. Edward Amestris, the Dark Doctor, Hohenheim, the Blood Alchemist, the Butcher of Chungking Mansions. Our research suggests his real name is Johnathan Ko. Grew up in LA, absent father, working mother. Moved to Korea at 18, went underground a year later. We’ve heard reports of him in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Shanghai, but unfortunately, those are outside our jurisdiction.”
My moved to the next slide, showing a bloody crime scene.
“Ko appears to be self-taught, something of a savant with Davincian Necromancy. His modus operandi appears to be posing as a back-alley doctor, then harvesting organs from patients to use in some sort of necromantic rituals. Word on the street is that he believes he’s found a path to immortality and needs a steady supply of dead bodies for his research. We’ve been monitoring him for months now, but he’s exclusively operated in Asian countries outside of our jurisdiction. Until now.”
Another slide, a blurry security camera photo.
“A couple days ago, Ko was spotted in Victoria, Canada. We don’t know why he’s there or how long he plans to stay, but there’s some evidence he intends to head back to America, possibly to return to his mother or join the IES. We have a narrow window of opportunity where we can operate Ko before he moves out of our jurisdiction.”
Another slide, a run-down building.
“This is where Ko is staying in Victoria. Don’t let appearances fool you, there’s powerful abjurations on this building. Ko is a formidable opponent, and likely has access to blood magic we don’t understand. The six of you, under Enforcer Blanc’s direction, will breach the perimeter, apprehend Ko and his research, and bring him back here for trial. Any questions?”
“What combat capabilities does Ko have?” Paladin Spiffit asked.
“We don’t know,” My replied. “Certainly some ability with blood and darkness magics, all self-taught, probably. He’s more of a scientist than a fighter, though.”
“Oh, he’s just some egghead,” Paladin Dominguez laughed. “Easy. We’ll kick his ass.”
There was laughter from everyone in the room, except for My, who was something of an egghead himself.
“You’re going to want to suit up for this mission. There’s an armored uniform for each of you at your lockers.” My said. “Blanc will join you at the Door.”
The six paladins stood and headed towards the locker room, laughing and joking about the mission.
“This’ll be easy,” Paladin Randow said, cracking her knuckles. “Blood mages are always such wimps.”
“I once took out six blood mages singlehandedly,” Odoye boasted. “One guy is no problem.”
“Why are they sending an Enforcer, anyway?” Ricketts asked. “This guy doesn’t seem that tough.”
“Probably think us paladins can’t hack it.” Randow said. “Let’s show them, huh?”
Randow and Larrabee split off from the group to head to the women’s locker room, while the others headed into the men’s to suit up. Ricketts admired the armored uniform, subtly woven with trafnium to make it functionally bulletproof and self-regenerating. As he changed, the other paladins around him began joking.
“Did you see Randow’s ass? I’d love to ‘hack’ that,” Odoye said.
“I was too distracted by Larrabee. Goddamn!” Dominguez said.
“Larrabee? Dude, she’s got a horseface!” Odoye argued.
“I wasn’t looking at her face...”
In his youth, Ricketts would probably have joined in on this locker room talk, but he was an engaged man now, and perving on his coworkers was beneath him now. Spiffit, however, noticed this.
“What do you think, Ricketts? Would you fuck Larrabee?”
“No,” Ricketts said calmly. “I’m engaged.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were a fucking nun,” Spiffit sneered. “Enjoy never getting laid again.”
But Rickets just laughed. “You don’t know my girl. I can get laid whenever I want without even trying. You can’t even get laid when you try.”
Dominguez and Odoye hooted and hollered as Spiffit sputtered, trying to think of a comeback.
******
The paladins met Enforcer Blanc at the Door, Majika Supremus’s personal portal from the Magic Underground to almost anywhere in the world. Blanc was another massive slab of a man, 6’5” and 310 pounds of pure muscle.
“Alright, Paladins! We’re going to be emerging a half-mile east of the location. It’s midnight in Canada, so we shouldn’t have any issues with normals. Everyone got their wands?”
Ricketts reflexively tapped his holster. It was there alright, a stiff 13 inches of solid redwood. Most mages didn’t bother with wands, but Majika Supremus found them incredibly useful for channeling spells in a controlled way, despite the frequent jokes about how phallic they were.
“Excellent! Move out!”
The paladins formed a single-file line behind Blanc and headed through the door. Ricketts was last in line, and he shut his eyes as he stepped through. He’d been born and raised in the Magic Underground, and had only been out in the “real world” a few times. The first thing he noticed was the wind. There was no wind in the magic underground, so the air pushing against him, even as gently as this sea breeze, was a new sensation. Then, he heard the crying of seagulls, and smelled the salt of the ocean. He opened his eyes to see that they’d emerged on a boardwalk somewhere. The ocean lapped beneath them. He took a moment to adjust to the sensory shock, before turning to join the paladins.
The team marched in silence for about ten minutes, encountering no one but the odd drunk. Well-kept commercial areas gave way to more run-down residential zones, until at last Blanc stopped them at an intersection.
“The target’s lair is on this block. Randow, Odoye, cover the front. Dominguez, Ricketts, head in through the back. Spiffit, Larrabee, you’re with me.”
Dominguez and Ricketts wordlessly set to work, crouching and sneaking around to the back of the house. There was a back door. Ricketts cast a quick spell, allowing him to see the ambient magic in the air around him.
“There’s a lightning spell on the doorknob,” he told Dominguez.
“On it.” Dominguez mumbled a few words under his breath, disarming the trap. Ricketts took the lead, and the two headed into the house.
It was dark, and there was a pervasive clammy smell, a mix of mold and death. Ricketts and Dominguez followed a long hallway, passing a bathroom and a messy kitchenette.
“One heartbeat. Upstairs,” Ricketts said to Dominguez, pointing up a flight of stairs. A faint red glow could be seen coming from above.
“Great, let’s go,” Dominguez said, starting up the stairs.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the Enforcer?” Ricketts asked.
“What are you, a pussy? We can take this scrawny fuck.” Dominguez replied. “Come on!”
Ricketts reluctantly followed Dominguez up the stairs, stopping to disarm a clever trap that would have bisected them. They reached the landing, following the red glow towards one specific room.
It was clearly a master bedroom at one point, but a lot of modifications had been done. The wall had been knocked out between the bedroom and bathroom, and the bathroom counter had been converted into a sink and lab station. Several tables were laid out, each containing a different dead body. A small cot was pushed against one corner. In the very center of the room, sat on a small barstool, was a glowing red crystal, pulsing with some sort of fell power. Other than a bit of moonlight through the window, the crystal was the only source of light in the room.
The target, the Blood Alchemist, was in the process of dissecting a corpse. He looked up when Dominguez and Ricketts entered the room, setting down the scalpel. “How’d you get past my traps?”
“Magic,” Dominguez quipped.
Ricketts surveyed the room. It was littered with ambient magic, the residue of spells cast and rituals performed. Some, Ricketts recognized from his training. Others were unfamiliar, but still clearly necromantic in nature. A few, he didn’t recognize at all.
“I recognize your uniform. You’re paladins.” The Blood Alchemist backed away from the corpse, his hands raised. “You’re going to arrest me.”
“Correct,” Ricketts said. “You’ve killed a lot of people and jeopardized the secrecy of the magical world.”
“I’m on the verge of a breakthrough,” the Blood Alchemist protested. “Once my research is complete, I’ll be able to save everyone. Ultimate power. Resistance to all disease and injury. If you just let me finish my research—”
“I’ll stop you right there,” Dominguez said. “You’re dabbling in human sacrifice and necromancy. Those are both very taboo and very illegal. I don’t care how much good you think you’re going to do, this stops now.”
“I’m not going to let your small minds stop me,” the Blood Alchemist said. “I’ve already achieved so much. You don’t understand what you’re meddling with.”
Ricketts decided to play good cop. “We’re not unreasonable, Johnathan. If you come quietly and cooperate, maybe we can get you a reduced sentence, and—”
“That’s not my name,” the Blood Alchemist interrupted. “I am Edward Amestris.”
“Mister Ko, we know all about you. Now, if you—”
“That’s NOT MY NAME!”
The cadaver closest to Ricketts exploded. Ricketts ducked as viscera rained down around him. The Blood Alchemist ran over to the stool, grabbed the gem, and pocketed it.
“Someday, you’ll see! When I become all-powerful, you’ll wish you’d never tried to cross me!” yelled the Blood Alchemist as he ran towards the window, preparing to flee.
But before he could, the window shattered. A young woman, clad in red robes, landed on the ground, tumbling to break her fall, before scrambling to her feet. Both the paladins and the Blood Alchemist stared, not knowing who they were looking at.
“Hohenheim! If you want to live, come with me!” she yelled.
“Who are you?” The Blood Alchemist said, confused.
“The one saving your life!” The woman cast a spell. Ricketts swore when he saw what it was. A Mage Blinder. A massive burst of ambient magic that did nothing but overwhelm all the other magical signatures in the area. His magic vision was useless now, so he dispelled it.
The woman wasn’t done, however. A gray sphere appeared from nowhere in her hands, its surface rippling slightly like water. She through the sphere at Dominguez, and it burst when it hit him like a water balloon. Dominguez collapsed to the ground, his heart having simply stopped beating.
Ricketts decided it was time to bid a tactical retreat. He fled the room, hearing another explosion behind him. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he passed Spiffit, collapsed on the floor. A chunk of his chest had been ripped out, exposing his ribs and the organs below. Spiffit gasped in agony, somehow still not dead yet but clearly not savable.
Ricketts emerged onto the front lawn. Larrabee was lying face down in a pool of blood—her own blood. Odoye and Blanc were crouched behind a bush, shooting spells at the mysterious woman through the broken window. As he watched, a spell reduced Randow to a red smear on the sidewalk. Ricketts scrambled behind the bush to join his allies.
“Dominguez is dead,” he panted. “Spiffit too.”
Blanc sighed. For the first time, Ricketts noticed the stump where the rest of Blanc’s leg had been, earlier.
“This isn’t your fault, Ricketts. This isn’t anyone’s fault. That woman, whoever she is, is more powerful than any of us could have predicted.” Blanc winced as he tried to speak. “You two, flee. Get back to the door and call for backup. The Blood Alchemist and his friend just became public enemy number one. I’ll buy you both time.”
“But sir, you can’t—”
“GO! That’s an order, Paladins!”
And so Odoye and Ricketts fled, as behind them Blanc prepared a spell.
********
When the Enforcers arrived, the Blood Alchemist and his mysterious savior were long gone. The Mage Blinder spell made tracking them impossible.
Larrabee was still alive, miraculously, and made a slow recovery under the care of the Icetouched, the greatest healers in the world. Her days as a field operative were over, though. Spiffit, Dominguez, Randow, and Enforcer Blanc received posthumous medals of bravery.
Odoye and Ricketts were given six weeks of paid leave and mandatory counselling. The experience made Ricketts a more cautious, wiser man. This one disaster became a blip in an otherwise successful career. For the next decade, Ricketts never failed in a mission, never lost a teammate in the line of duty, and became a proud father of two children. Rickett’s direct relevance to this story is over for now, but the ramifications of this dark night in Canada were further-reaching than anyone could have imagined, and there is unfortunately more misfortune to come in Rickett’s future. But for now, we’ll leave Ricketts on a happy note. Three months after the worst day of his life, the best day of his life. Martin and Laura were married in a beautiful ceremony, with all of their friends in attendance. Odoye and Larrabee each gave speeches at the reception, crediting him with saving their lives. Laura looked resplendent in her white dress, and Martin fell in love with her all over again just watching her walk down the aisle. He was happier than he ever imagined possible.
And as for the Blood Alchemist and his mysterious savior? Their story is only just beginning.
Martin Ricketts stared at himself intensely in the mirror. His dark blue uniform was ironed and pressed, his hair was neatly combed, and his badge was polished to a shine. He saluted himself, watching his uniform for any creases in the fabric.
“Praeventorus adversus tyrannis. I am a vanguard against tyranny.”
Martin’s fiancé, Laura, peered into the bedroom, giggling. “Are you going to admire yourself in the mirror all day, or are you going to come down for breakfast?”
Martin blushed. “Sorry, babe. I got a little carried away.”
“No, don’t apologize, it’s cute!” Laura leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Your first day as a full Majika Supremus paladin. No more “Junior Paladin”, no more being babysat on missions. It’s a big deal.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten this far without your support, my love.” Martin replied.
“Oh, you big sap.” Laura giggled. “Come on, your eggs are getting cold.”
Martin ate slowly, careful not to get anything on his uniform. He watched the morning news as he ate. The Magic Underground News Network aired 24/7, providing up-to-the-minute updates on the news for the mage community. Today, the top story was some fluff about drama in the Magic Underground High Council, which was more or less a constant, so: slow news day.
After finishing his meal, brushing his teeth, and kissing his wife goodbye, he finally set off on the kilometer-long walk to work. There was a magic tram line that would take him right to his headquarters, but Ricketts liked the exercise.
The sky of the Magic Underground was its usual bizarre gray static. Created in the 50s as a pocket dimension for mages to live separate from “the others”, it now boasted a population over 300,000, by far the biggest community of mages in the world. The air was always a bit stuffy and the bizarre empty sky took some getting used to, but Ricketts had lived there his whole life and wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.
The streets were fairly empty out here in the “suburbs”, with most already having gone to work. Ricketts gave a friendly wave to an old woman watering her plants with some water magic. When his path crossed with a group of kids on their way to school, they all stood ramrod-straight and gave him a salute, and he gave them one right back. The uniform commands respect.
Before long, suburban houses gave way to small convenience stores. A suit of Enchanto-Armor, a magic construct built by the savant Reginald Walkins to patrol the streets in lieu of humans, stood at attention at a street corner. Ricketts took the opportunity to glare at the thing as he passed. Robots could never replace the paladins of Majika Supremus, he thought bitterly. They simply don’t have the ability to react quickly in difficult situations that a real human does.
Finally, he approached the center of town, where towering buildings soared overhead. Fancy hotels, corporate headquarters, and penthouse apartments for the magic 1%. And finally, the center of the underground, Cooperation Park. A massive natural space inspired by Central Park in the normal world, bordered by museums and government buildings, with a massive tower at the center where the magic keeping the Underground intact is channeled. Ricketts took the scenic route through the park, past a statue commemorating the Constantinople Accords and the Tesseract Victim Memorial Fountain, before finally emerging from a small wooded path outside Majika Supremus Dispatch Center.
A small crowd of protesters was gathered outside, as they were most days. Probably from the nearby college, Ricketts guessed. Today, they were holding signs that said “Free Van Scoy” and “Fuck Majikal Supremacists”.
One of the protesters shouted at him as he passed. “Hey, pig! Gonna arrest any more innocents without a trial today?”
Ricketts sighed patiently. “Young lady, Van Scoy is being temporarily detained on suspicion of selling illegal magic artifacts to normals. He’s no angel. The Magic Underground needs to be kept a secret from the normal world.”
“Like hell it does!” replied the protester. “There’s no reason to keep the existence of magic secret!”
“I understand your frustration, but that simply isn’t true.” Ricketts replied, maintaining an even tone. “Surely you know why we had to go underground in the first place. The Church was terrified of mages, and they tried to exterminate us. And in response, famine magic was used to kill thousands. Separating the two worlds was the only way to keep them both safe.”
“But that was hundreds of years ago!” the protester countered. “It’s the 21st century now. We should be using our magic to cure disease and end world hunger. But instead, you insist on hoarding it, keeping humanity in the dark!”
The other protesters cheered at that.
Ricketts had heard this talking point before, though. “Do you really think the wider world is ready to accept magic? They still struggle to accept basic things like religious differences. Imagine how they’d react if they found out that magic was real on top of all that? They’d invade the Underground with their guns and nukes and it’d all be over. It’s true that magic won’t stay hidden forever. But we can’t force these things. It’ll happen when the normals are truly ready to accept us, and not before. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of work to do today defending your freedoms.”
Ricketts turned and walked away. The protester yelled after him, saying things like “No one asked you to defend us!”, “What about what the people want?”, and other such talking points, but Ricketts felt like he’d won the high ground in that exchange.
********
Majika Supremus was founded hundreds of years ago in Constantinople, as a force of mages meant to protect the world by detaining and prosecuting those who would use magic for evil. The only way to stop a bad guy with a spell is a good guy with a spell, after all, or at least it was until guns were invented.
The faction flourished for many years. When magic was forced underground in the 1600s, Majika Supremus shifted focus slightly, from merely stopping magical crime to preserving the barriers between the two worlds. It wasn’t an easy task, especially in those days of global exploration, but Majika Supremus managed to keep the normals blessedly unaware of magic for centuries.
Then came war. The 97 Years’ War, a series of small conflicts that built up and intertwined until Majika Supremus could no longer remain neutral. Under the leadership of Martin’s great-grandfather, Alan Rickets, Majika Supremus became one of the power players in the war, up until Alan’s assassination in 1950 by unknown radicals. Then, two years later, things went too far. Each side secretly prepared a deadly weapon, a tesseract, an inescapable prison that keeps those trapped inside in a state of agony for all time. The other side struck first, wiping out the entire leadership of the Bloodless Blade, one of Majika Supremus’s foremost allies. In response, the faction unleashed their tesseract on a population of necromancers based in Cairo, and accidentally destroyed one of the Pyramids of Giza and was caught on film. By the end of the week, every news source in the world was reporting on the destruction of the Pyramid of Djedefre by “wizards”, and it took the combined efforts of Majika Supremus and their enemies to erase memories, destroy film, and forge ancient documents to say that there were always only three pyramids at Giza.
After realizing that both sides had gone too far, they came to the negotiation table and hashed out an agreement. The results are generally agreed to have led to the global magic community as it exists today, with the creation of the Magic Underground, a pocket dimension accessible throughout the globe where mages could live openly, separate from normals. But Majika Supremus got the short end of the stick in the 1953 Tesseract Treaties. Their previous abilities to operate globally, as established by the Constantinople Accords, was gutted, as other factions wanted the ability to police their own regions. Majika Supremus was suddenly limited to mainland Europe, the Middle East, and the British Commonwealth, and their High Council and House of Debate were disbanded in favor of a new parliament formed by representatives from mage factions globally. Of course, they still operated illegally in places like the Americas when they thought they could get away with it, but the risks of reprisal from the other factions wasn’t worth it. Majika Supremus remained one of the foremost magical organizations in the world, but among their ranks is a clear and unambiguous resentment of their lost greatness.
This is all just to say that while this was Martin Ricketts was starting his first day as a full paladin, he still commanded many looks of respect and awe as he entered the Dispatch Center. To many, Alan Ricketts’ assassination was the moment that Majika Supremus fell from grace, and Martin was the heir to his great-grandfather’s legacy, the man who would make Majika Supremus great once again.
If only they all knew.
Martin headed straight for the briefing room, where the other paladins were milling around, getting coffee and waiting for their assignments. A pair of Enforcers, the elite paladins with their deep green uniforms and tactical combat wands, stood at the front of the room, preparing for some sort of deadly mission.
At 9:00 exactly, Darius Al-Hallaq entered the room. An absolute mountain of a man, he was the head paladin for this division, a man with 35 years of service under his belt and no signs of slowing down. His scarred face surveyed the room as he approached the podium.
“Attention!” Al-Hallaq shouted. The paladins all turned towards him and saluted as one, before taking their seats.
“Before we begin our briefing, some congratulations are in order for our newest paladin, Martin Ricketts.” Al-Hallaq paused as raucous applause broke out. After indulging the room for a few seconds, he gestured for silence. “Praeventorus adversus tyrannis, Paladin Ricketts, and welcome to the force. Make us proud.”
Al-Hallaq turned to the board behind him, where a series of wanted photos, police sketches, and evidence reports were pinned up. “We’ve got a lot going on today, paladins. Crime doesn’t sleep, and neither do we. I’ve got a mission in Canada, and I need six paladins who aren’t gonna pussy out at a little blood.”
Nearly every hand in the room went up, including Ricketts.
Al-Hallaq surveyed the room, deciding who to send. “Odoye, Larrabee, W. Spiffit, Randow, Ricketts, Dominguez. Head to briefing room 248. Researcher My will brief you on the situation.”
Ricketts was genuinely surprised to be chosen. He followed the other paladins down a winding hallway until they reached the room, where Researcher My, a mousy man with unkempt hair, was waiting, pacing anxiously.
“Ah, good, you must be the team,” My said. “You’ll be working under Enforcer Blanc on this mission. He’ll join us later.” My fumbled with a computer, pulling up a powerpoint on a projector at the far end of the room. A photo of a sullen-looking man with bleached hair appeared.
“This is our target,” My said, launching into a clearly scripted briefing. “He goes by a number of names. Edward Amestris, the Dark Doctor, Hohenheim, the Blood Alchemist, the Butcher of Chungking Mansions. Our research suggests his real name is Johnathan Ko. Grew up in LA, absent father, working mother. Moved to Korea at 18, went underground a year later. We’ve heard reports of him in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Shanghai, but unfortunately, those are outside our jurisdiction.”
My moved to the next slide, showing a bloody crime scene.
“Ko appears to be self-taught, something of a savant with Davincian Necromancy. His modus operandi appears to be posing as a back-alley doctor, then harvesting organs from patients to use in some sort of necromantic rituals. Word on the street is that he believes he’s found a path to immortality and needs a steady supply of dead bodies for his research. We’ve been monitoring him for months now, but he’s exclusively operated in Asian countries outside of our jurisdiction. Until now.”
Another slide, a blurry security camera photo.
“A couple days ago, Ko was spotted in Victoria, Canada. We don’t know why he’s there or how long he plans to stay, but there’s some evidence he intends to head back to America, possibly to return to his mother or join the IES. We have a narrow window of opportunity where we can operate Ko before he moves out of our jurisdiction.”
Another slide, a run-down building.
“This is where Ko is staying in Victoria. Don’t let appearances fool you, there’s powerful abjurations on this building. Ko is a formidable opponent, and likely has access to blood magic we don’t understand. The six of you, under Enforcer Blanc’s direction, will breach the perimeter, apprehend Ko and his research, and bring him back here for trial. Any questions?”
“What combat capabilities does Ko have?” Paladin Spiffit asked.
“We don’t know,” My replied. “Certainly some ability with blood and darkness magics, all self-taught, probably. He’s more of a scientist than a fighter, though.”
“Oh, he’s just some egghead,” Paladin Dominguez laughed. “Easy. We’ll kick his ass.”
There was laughter from everyone in the room, except for My, who was something of an egghead himself.
“You’re going to want to suit up for this mission. There’s an armored uniform for each of you at your lockers.” My said. “Blanc will join you at the Door.”
The six paladins stood and headed towards the locker room, laughing and joking about the mission.
“This’ll be easy,” Paladin Randow said, cracking her knuckles. “Blood mages are always such wimps.”
“I once took out six blood mages singlehandedly,” Odoye boasted. “One guy is no problem.”
“Why are they sending an Enforcer, anyway?” Ricketts asked. “This guy doesn’t seem that tough.”
“Probably think us paladins can’t hack it.” Randow said. “Let’s show them, huh?”
Randow and Larrabee split off from the group to head to the women’s locker room, while the others headed into the men’s to suit up. Ricketts admired the armored uniform, subtly woven with trafnium to make it functionally bulletproof and self-regenerating. As he changed, the other paladins around him began joking.
“Did you see Randow’s ass? I’d love to ‘hack’ that,” Odoye said.
“I was too distracted by Larrabee. Goddamn!” Dominguez said.
“Larrabee? Dude, she’s got a horseface!” Odoye argued.
“I wasn’t looking at her face...”
In his youth, Ricketts would probably have joined in on this locker room talk, but he was an engaged man now, and perving on his coworkers was beneath him now. Spiffit, however, noticed this.
“What do you think, Ricketts? Would you fuck Larrabee?”
“No,” Ricketts said calmly. “I’m engaged.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were a fucking nun,” Spiffit sneered. “Enjoy never getting laid again.”
But Rickets just laughed. “You don’t know my girl. I can get laid whenever I want without even trying. You can’t even get laid when you try.”
Dominguez and Odoye hooted and hollered as Spiffit sputtered, trying to think of a comeback.
******
The paladins met Enforcer Blanc at the Door, Majika Supremus’s personal portal from the Magic Underground to almost anywhere in the world. Blanc was another massive slab of a man, 6’5” and 310 pounds of pure muscle.
“Alright, Paladins! We’re going to be emerging a half-mile east of the location. It’s midnight in Canada, so we shouldn’t have any issues with normals. Everyone got their wands?”
Ricketts reflexively tapped his holster. It was there alright, a stiff 13 inches of solid redwood. Most mages didn’t bother with wands, but Majika Supremus found them incredibly useful for channeling spells in a controlled way, despite the frequent jokes about how phallic they were.
“Excellent! Move out!”
The paladins formed a single-file line behind Blanc and headed through the door. Ricketts was last in line, and he shut his eyes as he stepped through. He’d been born and raised in the Magic Underground, and had only been out in the “real world” a few times. The first thing he noticed was the wind. There was no wind in the magic underground, so the air pushing against him, even as gently as this sea breeze, was a new sensation. Then, he heard the crying of seagulls, and smelled the salt of the ocean. He opened his eyes to see that they’d emerged on a boardwalk somewhere. The ocean lapped beneath them. He took a moment to adjust to the sensory shock, before turning to join the paladins.
The team marched in silence for about ten minutes, encountering no one but the odd drunk. Well-kept commercial areas gave way to more run-down residential zones, until at last Blanc stopped them at an intersection.
“The target’s lair is on this block. Randow, Odoye, cover the front. Dominguez, Ricketts, head in through the back. Spiffit, Larrabee, you’re with me.”
Dominguez and Ricketts wordlessly set to work, crouching and sneaking around to the back of the house. There was a back door. Ricketts cast a quick spell, allowing him to see the ambient magic in the air around him.
“There’s a lightning spell on the doorknob,” he told Dominguez.
“On it.” Dominguez mumbled a few words under his breath, disarming the trap. Ricketts took the lead, and the two headed into the house.
It was dark, and there was a pervasive clammy smell, a mix of mold and death. Ricketts and Dominguez followed a long hallway, passing a bathroom and a messy kitchenette.
“One heartbeat. Upstairs,” Ricketts said to Dominguez, pointing up a flight of stairs. A faint red glow could be seen coming from above.
“Great, let’s go,” Dominguez said, starting up the stairs.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the Enforcer?” Ricketts asked.
“What are you, a pussy? We can take this scrawny fuck.” Dominguez replied. “Come on!”
Ricketts reluctantly followed Dominguez up the stairs, stopping to disarm a clever trap that would have bisected them. They reached the landing, following the red glow towards one specific room.
It was clearly a master bedroom at one point, but a lot of modifications had been done. The wall had been knocked out between the bedroom and bathroom, and the bathroom counter had been converted into a sink and lab station. Several tables were laid out, each containing a different dead body. A small cot was pushed against one corner. In the very center of the room, sat on a small barstool, was a glowing red crystal, pulsing with some sort of fell power. Other than a bit of moonlight through the window, the crystal was the only source of light in the room.
The target, the Blood Alchemist, was in the process of dissecting a corpse. He looked up when Dominguez and Ricketts entered the room, setting down the scalpel. “How’d you get past my traps?”
“Magic,” Dominguez quipped.
Ricketts surveyed the room. It was littered with ambient magic, the residue of spells cast and rituals performed. Some, Ricketts recognized from his training. Others were unfamiliar, but still clearly necromantic in nature. A few, he didn’t recognize at all.
“I recognize your uniform. You’re paladins.” The Blood Alchemist backed away from the corpse, his hands raised. “You’re going to arrest me.”
“Correct,” Ricketts said. “You’ve killed a lot of people and jeopardized the secrecy of the magical world.”
“I’m on the verge of a breakthrough,” the Blood Alchemist protested. “Once my research is complete, I’ll be able to save everyone. Ultimate power. Resistance to all disease and injury. If you just let me finish my research—”
“I’ll stop you right there,” Dominguez said. “You’re dabbling in human sacrifice and necromancy. Those are both very taboo and very illegal. I don’t care how much good you think you’re going to do, this stops now.”
“I’m not going to let your small minds stop me,” the Blood Alchemist said. “I’ve already achieved so much. You don’t understand what you’re meddling with.”
Ricketts decided to play good cop. “We’re not unreasonable, Johnathan. If you come quietly and cooperate, maybe we can get you a reduced sentence, and—”
“That’s not my name,” the Blood Alchemist interrupted. “I am Edward Amestris.”
“Mister Ko, we know all about you. Now, if you—”
“That’s NOT MY NAME!”
The cadaver closest to Ricketts exploded. Ricketts ducked as viscera rained down around him. The Blood Alchemist ran over to the stool, grabbed the gem, and pocketed it.
“Someday, you’ll see! When I become all-powerful, you’ll wish you’d never tried to cross me!” yelled the Blood Alchemist as he ran towards the window, preparing to flee.
But before he could, the window shattered. A young woman, clad in red robes, landed on the ground, tumbling to break her fall, before scrambling to her feet. Both the paladins and the Blood Alchemist stared, not knowing who they were looking at.
“Hohenheim! If you want to live, come with me!” she yelled.
“Who are you?” The Blood Alchemist said, confused.
“The one saving your life!” The woman cast a spell. Ricketts swore when he saw what it was. A Mage Blinder. A massive burst of ambient magic that did nothing but overwhelm all the other magical signatures in the area. His magic vision was useless now, so he dispelled it.
The woman wasn’t done, however. A gray sphere appeared from nowhere in her hands, its surface rippling slightly like water. She through the sphere at Dominguez, and it burst when it hit him like a water balloon. Dominguez collapsed to the ground, his heart having simply stopped beating.
Ricketts decided it was time to bid a tactical retreat. He fled the room, hearing another explosion behind him. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he passed Spiffit, collapsed on the floor. A chunk of his chest had been ripped out, exposing his ribs and the organs below. Spiffit gasped in agony, somehow still not dead yet but clearly not savable.
Ricketts emerged onto the front lawn. Larrabee was lying face down in a pool of blood—her own blood. Odoye and Blanc were crouched behind a bush, shooting spells at the mysterious woman through the broken window. As he watched, a spell reduced Randow to a red smear on the sidewalk. Ricketts scrambled behind the bush to join his allies.
“Dominguez is dead,” he panted. “Spiffit too.”
Blanc sighed. For the first time, Ricketts noticed the stump where the rest of Blanc’s leg had been, earlier.
“This isn’t your fault, Ricketts. This isn’t anyone’s fault. That woman, whoever she is, is more powerful than any of us could have predicted.” Blanc winced as he tried to speak. “You two, flee. Get back to the door and call for backup. The Blood Alchemist and his friend just became public enemy number one. I’ll buy you both time.”
“But sir, you can’t—”
“GO! That’s an order, Paladins!”
And so Odoye and Ricketts fled, as behind them Blanc prepared a spell.
********
When the Enforcers arrived, the Blood Alchemist and his mysterious savior were long gone. The Mage Blinder spell made tracking them impossible.
Larrabee was still alive, miraculously, and made a slow recovery under the care of the Icetouched, the greatest healers in the world. Her days as a field operative were over, though. Spiffit, Dominguez, Randow, and Enforcer Blanc received posthumous medals of bravery.
Odoye and Ricketts were given six weeks of paid leave and mandatory counselling. The experience made Ricketts a more cautious, wiser man. This one disaster became a blip in an otherwise successful career. For the next decade, Ricketts never failed in a mission, never lost a teammate in the line of duty, and became a proud father of two children. Rickett’s direct relevance to this story is over for now, but the ramifications of this dark night in Canada were further-reaching than anyone could have imagined, and there is unfortunately more misfortune to come in Rickett’s future. But for now, we’ll leave Ricketts on a happy note. Three months after the worst day of his life, the best day of his life. Martin and Laura were married in a beautiful ceremony, with all of their friends in attendance. Odoye and Larrabee each gave speeches at the reception, crediting him with saving their lives. Laura looked resplendent in her white dress, and Martin fell in love with her all over again just watching her walk down the aisle. He was happier than he ever imagined possible.
And as for the Blood Alchemist and his mysterious savior? Their story is only just beginning.