Silhouette

Medraw ran through the streets, away from the building she had called her home for the past year. The insectile humanoid would have cried had she had tear ducts, not just because of the throbbing pain coming from her dented forehead still leaking hemolymph, or the humiliation of losing to a child. No, the reason behind her emotional pain was different altogether. Not only had her human disguise been ruined by her lost focus and the following loss of the vast majority of her armor, but what little straps of leather she had managed to keep and take with her in her flight from Silhouette's men had disappeared in her hands, vanishing in particles of light.

She was Runar's closest confidant after Karadok and Tristare, she was privy to secrets even Speareau and Pierce Evil were clueless about. She knew about her employer's last layer of defense, the secret teleportation feature engraved in each of their armors, the one that would immediately bring the suits to him and animate them to protect him, leaving their bearers behind.

The fact he chose to employ this last resort in the middle of an attack while his precious Runarian Knights should be fighting? That meant someone had arrived in his office, and that the threat they posed was enough for him to decide that sacrificing his elite was needed. Even if he survived and somehow managed to repel the raid, most of their thugs would still be dead, the other four Knights were probably gravely injured at the very least, and there was no doubt in her mind that their crafters and their work had been affected by the attack too.

To sum it up, Runar was finished, and she was out of a job.

Still, the loss of her illusory self had to be the worst part of this whole mess. Unlike the others, she didn't need her enchanted suit to do her job, so she wouldn't struggle to find assassin work elsewhere, but unlike the bug that annoying technology-obsessed teen had compared her to she couldn't change her appearance at will, and finding anything at a similar level to what the runemaster had given would cost more than she could earn in years. Even if she were to empty her account at the Black Bank, she doubted she'd even get close to half of what she needed to buy the lowliest sensory disguise, it was why she went to work for Runar in the first place, he offered it to her for free. Maybe she could empty his vault too? No, if he survived he would chase her to the end of Terra Stellis, that man was far too headstrong for his own good. If he hadn't been so hellbent on capturing and enslaving Silhouette, none of this would have happened. Maybe they could have even been allies if he had been apologetic about the raid and Pierce Evil's assault.

One of her arms went to one of her compound eyes to wipe away the nonexistent tears flowing from it - she had taken the habit of mimicking human gestures to keep the illusion going, even when it was gone. Now her dreamed beautiful body was out of grasp, and she doubted any of the other gang leaders or crime bosses around would offer a similar deal to Runar's. The only person she could think of right now that could change her or create an illusion that would was the Pacther, and she wanted nothing to do with that man. There was a reason Karadok was the one who dealt with him despite her being the one in charge of communications with other groups. The one his eyes had been analyzing her when she first met him, obviously seeing through the disguise and marveling at what he could do with her body... It was sickening.

Her hand, now covered in the hemolymph that kept on leaking from her wound onto the rest of her head, lowered back down as she slowed her run. She should be far away enough from the building to avoid any sweep or patrol Silhouette's men may have set up, and frankly, she was getting tired. Her body was meant for bursts of effort, not a constant drain of her stamina. She wasn't one of those unlucky people who mutated into horrendous creatures because of a Chaotic or Awakened Core or even exposure to particularly unstable materials, she was instead a lucky insect who got a chance at sapience and human life, and her biology reflected that. She couldn't recall what species she had been, but her anatomy and organs were vastly different from even a human insectoid mutant's.

She sat down on a crate abandoned in the alleyway she found herself in to gather her breath. Her spiracles opened as wide as they could on the sides of her body, taking in as much air as they could to the point they grew much more visible than usual - much like most of her kin these openings to her respiratory system had once been on the sides of her abdomen, but her transformation fused it with her thorax to form a single body with additional joints to allow for her to twist her body from side to side despite her hard chitinous exterior. People took their spine and soft flesh for granted.

As she sat there she brought a hand up to her damaged forehead and delicately tried to feel the wound without worsening it, and had she been able to she would have grimaced. The dent in her exoskeleton would take at least a molt or two to fix, and her last one was still recent, so it would take a while, but at least the soft insides beneath didn't feel too roughed up. The fact she was only leaking hemolymph and not flesh and brain matter was a good sign. Still, she should probably drop by a healer before long, she didn't have a cockroach's thick liquid consistency that prevented them from bleeding out.

Her bladed antennae twitched. A sound drew her attention, somewhere in the darkness from where she had emerged. She carefully adjusted her posture, making sure to keep the movement natural and relaxed as though she was just getting more comfortable on the hollow cube of wood so that her observer wouldn't know she had noticed them, angling her body so that she could leap away as soon as possible. The pitty patter of multiple clawed feet walking on the ground grew nearer, the sound too off to match a Sickler's gait even if there were multiple of them, but the fact they could stay hidden from her wide peripheral vision despite walking in a straight line in what was essentially a closed corridor was more worrying than anything those dinosaur equivalents of overgrown rabid raccoons could do.

She was ready to jump off when a voice echoed between the walls.

"Stay."

She ignored and leaped, only for sharp claws to catch her in the joints of her legs and drag her down, and her body loudly hit the floor despite her being quite light. Another voice similar to the first one spoke out, right as more claws dug themselves into her neck.

"Freeze."

She was confident she could escape from one assailant before they had made contact, but now there were at least two of them and they both put very sharp things in crucial spots of her body. She felt the claws on her legs as they moved up to her hips, ready to slash at the connections between her limbs and her trunk, while more claws appeared in her spiracles and around her antennae. More sharp and pointy things lightly touched her body in yet more spots, and she was unnerved to realize, unlike most people who tried to handle her before these weren't treating her like a human but a bug, approximately guessing the position of her vital organs with much greater accuracy than anyone else ever had before.

She wasn't a target, she was prey.

"Prisoner."

A third voice, and this time a figure appeared in the corner of her vision. It was small, roughly the size of a large cat, with a furry black body and a naked tail. She didn't expect to be captured by rats, but the fact she was still alive and they were talking was a good sign. It meant she wasn't on the menu. Yet.

"Obey."

The rat the closest to her got close to her face, still laying on the side, on the ground, and placed its little paw over her mouth, its claws sliding in the gaps between her mandibles, ready to tear them out.

"Survive."

More rats appeared, dragging black ropes that they quickly tied around her body and limbs. Their work was shoddy, and she was confident she could undo the various knots she could feel if struggling wasn't enough to get the restraints off her, but there was no doubt in her mind she'd be dead within seconds if she went with this idea. Not to mention that she wasn't stupid and had recognized the pattern here, a creature of shadows and its troops who all wore black attacked, and now black rats with black ropes were capturing her. Silhouette's name was plastered all over this, and she didn't know if that fact should make her feel better or not.

Karadok came to with a terrible headache. He recalled finishing the runic cell, hearing the yapping and running of Glapissant, meeting and fighting Silhouette until he was trapped by the magic of the symbols, him having to cut off his hands to prevent the corruption from coursing through the rest of his body, trusting his master to pay for the Patcher to heal him or to make runic prosthetics himself, and the shadow bringing out his teleportation crystal...

The orc's eyes opened wide. He struggled to get up with his magically sealed stumps, and his tusks ached for some reason, but before long he was up, and his still waking caught up to the situation. His armor and weapons were gone, leaving him defenseless in only the layer of cloth he wore beneath the suit, the room's entrance had disappeared, the trap prepared among the runes on the walls having gone off as soon as the cell had detected its target inside, and Glapissant...

The abominable beast's head dragged on the ground, weak growls and cries escaping from its jaws, its long prehensile neck having lost all strength, while its body with flanks covered in eyes and holes and mouths stood, slightly stumbling on its legs but in better health than its thinking part. Or did the things in the creature's body have enough brainpower to act on their own now that the previous leader of the flock was incapacitated? Karadok did not know, and frankly, he didn't want to. The less he knew about how the Patcher worked and how his creations felt and thought, the better he would sleep at night.

The skinless beast walked forward now that it saw the orc was awake, and its long prehensile claws made of repurposed spines dragged limply on the ground, much like the head at the end of the neck. If he still had his hands and his sword, Karadok would have considered cutting the thing off with how much pain the beast looked like it was going through.

But now wasn't the time to worry about the monster he had ordered. Silhouette had escaped using his spatial crystal, which meant he must be fighting lord Runar right about now. He had to get out of here right and rejoin with his lord, maybe gather the other knights by the same occasion. He couldn't recall when in his scuffle with the living shadow he lost consciousness, but he could remember how he took Karadok's head and aimed the sword he was holding between his teeth to use it against the Patcher's creation. Past that, however...

Karadok could worry about this later. Right now, his lord needed him. He stumbled his way across the room to reach the now-sealed door and took in a deep breath before headbutting it, his green forehead breaking through the solid magic with ease. He kicked at the wall to clear out more of the solid magic before stepping forward, breaking whatever was left in his way. Glapissant followed, still dragging its limp head as it walked forward with great difficulty. But the orc had no time to worry about the beast's state, he had to-

In a blink of an eye Karadok found himself unable to move, and it took a second for his brain to catch up to the feeling of something wrapped around him. He feared it was Silhouette or one of his goons yet again, but instead when he looked down his eyes met red exposed flesh. He followed the serpentine tube of muscle back up to find Glapissant's open maw above him, its two pairs of eyes a sick milky white as it stared at nothing, its saliva dribbling down on his shoulders. He tried to struggle, but his exhausted and aching muscles couldn't do much against the Patcher's abomination's strength, and he found himself cursing the madman as his horrible creation betrayed him and got ready to devour him...

The two jaws filled with sharp ribs turned teeth closed, and Karadok was surprised to find himself unharmed. Why would the beast do such a thing if not to eat him? It should know he was not the target, and even if one of its minds went madder than it already was the others should have been holding it back. Where did this sudden spike of strength come from? What was-

A dreadful chill spread through his entire being. He recalled the Patcher's demand. The contract they had both signed. If he ever stopped working for Runar, then-

Before he realized it Glapissant was running down the hallway before it forced its way through every wall in its path until it broke through to the outside, and the beats scuttled its way down the building until it reached the ground. It ran away, its prize caught in a cocoon formed of its neck and head on its back. By the time Karadok realized what was happening and began to scream it was already far too late, for his desperate cries were just another drop in the misery of the slums.

Tristare briefly came to, ignoring the stinging pain of the wound in his shoulder and the dozens of impacts caught by his armor to try and take in his surroundings and learn more about the situation. Invisible or not, intelligence gathering was his field of work. He could feel the air hitting his third eye, and that meant that either those idiots had removed his armor or his master had used his final defense. Either way, it meant he was now defenseless and at the mercy of his captors.

He slightly opened one of his eyes to see what were his assailants up to without giving away that he was awake, and he could see the two imbeciles he had incapacitated were already awake and talking to one another, though it seemed they were alone with him.

"So... You think we're gonna get a bonus or a day off or two since we got hurt?"

"Buddy, getting hurt is part of the job. I'm not sure we'll even get a bruise at that."

"You think the others are gonna make fun of us?"

"Meh, maybe a bit, but frankly what could we do against an invisible guy, eh? I mean, that wasn't part of the briefing."

"Really? I'd say that falls into the 'expect the unexpected' bit."

"Hey, no one's ever ready for an invisible guy."

"Captain Cyan was."

"Isn't he that dude from that kids' show the boss' kids are always watching?"

"EXCUSE YOU! That is a historically accurate show based on recovered recordings of the beloved Union Hero Captain Cyan. They just made it more child friendly to make it more accessible to younger audiences."

Tristare had heard enough. He leaned forward before throwing his head back as hard as he could against the wall, promptly knocking himself out once more, much to the confusion of the two members of the Commando left to the side.