#egotober 2023 fright

[innudoggy]

Dark forgot to feed his dog… again… 😅

[inkribbon796]

Egotober 2023 Day 29: Scarier than Dark Himself

Summary: The heroes are trying to meet with Marvin when they get a lead they didn’t expect.

Prompt: Fright

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

Mark and Wade were in Mark’s car, about ten miles out of Egoton and keeping an eye on the city. It couldn’t move on them if they kept their eyes on it. They didn’t want to get stranded out in the forest of Ohio.

The two of them were in just their masks because Mark didn’t want his car identified. They were supposed to be waiting for Marvin, who was going to drive up. This was risky, insanely risky. But they wanted to test something and Wade couldn’t leave town for the next week.

Silver turned to look at a car driving up to them as Wade kept his eye on Egoton.

Marvin got out and Mark let out a sigh of relief. “Sup, boys.”

“Hey,” Mark said. “Was getting worried.”

Marvin flipped him off. “Fuck you. That was a three hour flight and an hour drive.”

“Yeah, well we couldn’t fly you into Egoton,” Wade said. “So thanks for saving your life.”

“I’m dying to fight with him, so I won’t mind it,” Marvin said.

“Yeah well, you’re not the only person in Egoton, otherwise, sure, we can vacate the whole ass town so you two can fight out your problems.” Wade said.

“We’re not here for that, we’re here for magical lessons and to figure out what’s wrong with Dark.

“You know,” a voice interrupted as a man seemed to appear from the darkness.

All of the heroes flinched and braced for a fight.

It wasn’t a person they recognized but it was the face of one of Dark’s top lieutenants, Lynel Bargs, smiling at them with a grin of bad intentions and forbidden knowledge. “You could ask his Lieutenant. I don’t know, might be able to tell you something?”

“And what do you want for it?” Wade asked. “If you’re who you say you are.”

“Protection, I don’t want Dark to kill me for the things I say.” Bargs said. “Because I know when he’s planning on retiring someone and I’m not dying if I have anything to say about it.”

“So what, you come to say why Dark’s so afraid of me?” Marvin smiled.

Bargs laughed. “Oh no, it’s not you, I’ve had time to think about this.”

“What is it then, ass?” Marvin said.

“I want protection first,” Bargs said. “I want it or you get nothing.”

“Fine,” Wade said. “Gatling and I can escort you to your house and you can get what you want and we can go to the police because news flash: if you’re just living in your house he’s going to murder you.”

“Good,” Bargs said. “So, magic man, in short. Dark’s not afraid of you, he’s afraid of your contact list. We’ve got orders to report you and any other hero, except one. The time mage. We’ve been ordered to try and kill him on sight and report as we do it. Dark wants him dead on contact.”

“J.J?” Marvin said. “Why—”

The magician frowned and looked down. “What is he up to that makes him so nervous about Jay?”

“How far back can he time turn?” Wade asked.

“Only by like a week, maybe two tops if he has a power supply of some kind to draw from,” Marvin said.

“Does Dark know that?” Wade asked.

Marvin and Silver looked at him. Silver spoke up first. “I . . . Does he? I don’t think we’ve ever said that around him.”

Marvin hit his fist to the palm of his hand. “If he doesn’t know that then we have an advantage. We can use that against him.”

Wade made some noise. “Yeah, but he’s scared now? You all have come over like a couple of times. What’s he so frightened by? Did something happen recently?”

Lynel smiled, “Well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say Dark is acting like a person afraid of their own death.”

“And I bet you know?” Silver said.

The Lieutenant had a look that Marvin just wanted to punch off his face. “Well, I’d be a little more cagey about this, but the brat’s in Florida and I’m finding myself a bit braver. Dark’s become a bit of a collector in the last fifteen years. He has his Lost Ones. They are perhaps the tightest secret he’s keeping.”

“Lost Ones?” Wade asked. “What is he? Some fucked up version of Peter Pan?”

“Well, one of them does have the codename “Curls”, so I guess,” Bargs said.

“Are they okay? Living with Dark must be awful.” Silver desperately hoped Wilford wasn’t involved anywhere in this mess.

“I’d think that, if they were human, but they’re not people anymore,” Lynel said. “That damn cowboy brought him actual children, and when I blinked they were not human anymore.”

“How young did he get them?” Silver asked.

Lynel shrugged. “I don’t know. Five? I can’t tell how old kids are.”

“But Dark can,” Silver can.

“Hmm?” Marvin said, looking at him instead of Bargs.

Silver turned to him. “Dark knew exactly how old Blank was, on sight.”

He turned back to Lynel, “How old are Dark’s wards, I guess that’s the word for it, right?”

“I don’t think that’s the word some of them use,” Lynel said. After Wade gave him a look, he added. “How should I know? One of them looks like he’s twenty, the girl looks twelve.”

“There’s two?” Silver asked, he looked over in the direction of Dark’s Manor.

“There’s at least five, I can’t tell how many there are when they blend together,” Lynel said. “Which is the idea.”

“How hard is it to count kids?” Marvin said, magic moving along his fingertips in an erratic pattern.

Lynel sighed, “Well, I hate saying this but it’s true because they were picked to be this way. They all kinda look the same. Dark had the cowboy bring him a bunch of Asian American kids. I don’t know where he got them from, I’ve never asked. As far as I know they were all orphans. With no families. Not the kinda kids the system would miss. A bunch of them were labeled “problem children” so no one would check on them.”

“And they didn’t?” Silver said. “How do you not check up on these kids?”

“Look, I just know about the kids, I don’t know anything else about them and I don’t want to know. They’re demons just like he is and I want my protection from the Author.”

“That one of the kids, what about Dark?” Marvin asked, his magic pausing.

Lynel shook his head. “No, He’s got three that are the worst. The rest are all just bratty children in suits.”

“And you’re worried about an Author, wouldn’t all of this guy’s kids be bad news?” Wade was trying to think of a way to help these kids. If they even wanted to be helped in the first place. “If Dark took them when they were little and the State didn’t want them. They’d be loyal to him. Is any one kid worse than the other?”

“No, Author’s different, he’s worse, Dark can keep the rest of them but Author needs to be five million miles away from me,” Bargs said. “He makes people disappear. Sometimes Dark will call the kid into one of our meetings and he just makes them disappear. Not the way Dark does. We’ll see them wandering around the warehouses, and he tortures them until he gets bored. Author is a demon. He’s a monster, and everytime I see him he frightens me so bad I swear I’m going to drop dead on the spot.”

“Alright, we’ll get you out of there, you help us, we help you,” Drowned said. “In fact we’re going now. I call Gatling and get into your car. You get a suitcase and we head to the station.”

“I don’t want to go to a place Dark owns,” Bargs said.

Wade walked over to Bargs and they began to organize a quick retreat.

Silver turned to Marvin. “Sorry tonight’s a wash.”

“Nah,” Marvin smiled, using magic to pick himself off the ground. “I’ll crash on your base’s couch.”

“Dark is gonna murder you,” Silver said, also picking himself up to start flying.

“We know why now and I can work with that,” Marvin said. “I’m not letting some two-bit, bad tempered imp scare me.”

“You get Blank hurt and I’ll put you in the ground,” Silver said.

“I got this, he’ll be fine, I’ll even put some enchantments on his suits,” Marvin said. “He’s overdue some proper protection. And Dark is due a good proper scare.”

Silver didn’t seem happy.

Marvin wouldn’t get to spend the night in Egoton. He’d stay on the edge of town in a hotel, but he’d get to meet Blank the next morning and start lessons.

As it turned out, Drowned was decent at magic but Blank had promise. He could already slightly see aura when he was invisible, Ethan just needed some pointers in figuring out what he was looking at.

And Marvin was itching for a fight. He’d get one from Dark before he left, Marvin promised himself that.