The Masked Phantom

Gentetsu

The night was silent as ever.

Gentetsu felt rather guilty about spying on Prince Earic and Prince Tyler. But he didn't take too much of it to heart. He knew he had to be there. He knew that he would never forgive himself if something had happened to his savior. He slipped down from the wooden ceiling beams above. It was fortunate that Prince Tyler had left his room.

Slowly, Gen crept towards the lattices window and opened it. A cold breeze blew into the room, sending the soft pink curtain into frenzy inside the room, fluttering like a mad thing. The cold bit into Gen's face. Ignoring the pain, he jumped down, his feet landing on the section of roof below. He managed to close the window, but not properly. He just hoped the prince did not find it unusual.

In a distance, the lights in the ballroom shone bright. But there were no sound from it. It seems that the feast has ended and that the servants were cleaning it all up. Above him, the moons bobbed in between the clouds. With a sigh, Gen crawled along the roof and hauled his body into the nearest corridor below him. Everywhere was silent.

Gen didn't bother about concealing himself in the corridor. He was already Prince Earic's guard. No one would dare to accuse him of snooping around, except Prince Tyler of course. Just as Gen was about to slip back to his room a flash of a shadow caught the corner of his eye.

For some reason, Gen tensed and he drew his sword out. There was a bad feeling in the air. But when he looked around, there was no one in sight.

He strode along the corridor and turned a corner.

For a minute, Gen almost sheathed his katana.

It was a maid, just a simply maid wearing a black dress, facing her back to him. But her posture was somewhat too straight and stiff; also, maids don't usually wear black. Aryans are not too fond of the colour.

'Miss?'

The maid turned her head over her shoulders. What Gen saw, made Goosebumps appear all over his skin. Instead of a face was a white mask. Gen stepped back for a while, utterly confused. The maid turned around completely.

Gen, for the first time in his life as Earic's guard, ran for his life.

He couldn't even hear the maid's footsteps, but he knew she was behind him. He looked back for a bit and noticed that she was catching up to him.

'What kind of demon is she?' muttered Gen as he turned another corner. If only he could get to a place with palace guards.

A dagger flashed by him, almost cutting his face.

'Help me ancestors!'

Gen could not curse his luck for the fact that the whole castle was either asleep or drunk. Feeling that running was a fool's option, he stood his ground and drew both of his katanas. The maid stopped a few feet away from him, cocking her head like an animal trying to decide what to do.

'This is your chance, yokai.'

The maid leaped at him, trying to claw at his neck with a dagger. Gen had a hard time just deflecting the dagger paint away from his face.

'What is_'

'Backup!' thought Gen as he turned to the direction of the voice. His hope diminished the instand he saw who it was.

The Shokrean boy.

The boy was weaponless and utterly useless in Gen's opinion.

'Get. Help.' Gen screamed. The boy nodded and ran.

Maybe Gen would have preferred if he was not alone. Feeling his strength leaving him by dueling with the strangely strong girl, Gen heaved both swords at her. The maid jumped back before leaping back at him again.

Archestrian came with backup all right, but not the type he was expecting. Archestrian ran towards him with a bow and arrow at hand while two figures, one big and one small, running behind him. The boy drew the string of the bow with an arrow notched between his fingers. Gen stepped back. He did not know how good the boy was at aiming, so he did not want to take a chance. Just as the maid was about to charge at him again, an arrow struck her thigh.

But she still did not stop moving. Another arrow struck her shoulder.

This was enough for the maid to turn her attention to Archestrian.

'Don't kill her!' rang out Earic's clear voice. Both Gen and Archestrian looked at the Reagent King in confusion. And large and tall figure next to him pulled out a whip and cracked it. The maid still continued to saunter towards them. Archestrian aimed another arrow at her.

'Pray tell, brother. How are we supposed to catch her without killing her?'

Gen took a while to recover before he sprinted towards the maid.  He was scared that his plan might end up backfiring on him, but Earic's safety was his priority. Swiftly, he swept his feet under the girl from behind her, causing her to fall. While she fell, he disarmed both of her daggers and tree them away. The girl fell in the floor. Before she could get up, Gen kneed her so that she will stay down and reached down to her pressure point on the neck. Long nails raked his arms and face as she struggled, but eventually, the her movements became sluggish until the fell onto Gen's arms.

The castle became silent again. Archestrian gave out a sigh of relief while Gen stepped away from the girl.

Curious, he peeled off the girl's mask revealing a soft and fragile face of a teenage girl.

Prince Tyler whistled, 'Who knew beauties can be so dangerous.'

Earic stared at the girl in deep thought. He turned to Archestrian. 'You seem more startled than all of us, have you ever seen her?'

Archestrian was quiet for a moment before saying, 'Chamber maid.'

Prince Tyler growled, 'What is a Shokrean doing here, brother dear? You seemed rather attached to foreigners.'

Earic ignored him. He stepped close to the girl and lifted her eyelids. Pale brown pupils stared back at her.

'So, these are the so rumored Shokrean Chamber maids? I really still do not understand why they have a need for having midnight maids to clean room and assassinate unwanted guests. But I must admit it seems rather convenient.'

He turned to Archestrian, 'Do they actually brainwash these young girls?'

Archestrian frowned, 'She does it.'

'She?'

'She.'

'She means her,' said Gen. 'The one who chases them.'

'Oh... her.'

'What her?' said Prince Tyler.

Earic sighed, 'There are a lot of things you are not aware of, Tyler. Now if you can be of some use, please carry her to the passages.'

The prince mumbled something under this breath before hauling the girl over his shoulders.

'And Gen, call a physician, we do not want her to die from blood loss.'

Gen nodded before leaving.

One man, three boys and one girl stood in front of a so called maid that was tightly tied onto a chair. She was still unconscious, but they did not want to take any chances.

While Earic stood at the center, staring at the so called Chamber maid, four others stared around at the peculiar looking room. Prince Tyler, who felt like he was missing on a lot of things about his strange bastard brother, stared the most at the metal cylinders and spikes that were hung on the walls. There were steel roped almost everywhere. Something which looked like a glass panel fixed upright on to a table. Crawlers scurried around amidst all the metal junk that lay on the corners of the room.

'What type of sorcery is this?' exclaimed the prince.

'Yeah...' said Sapphire, 'This looks like inside one of those ships under Shirmaya.'

'There are ships under Shirmaya?' said Earic, who turned around with a strange predatory gaze in his eyes. 'Y-you have been there? What is it like?'

'My prince,' said Gen. 'Focus.'

'Yes, or course,' said Earic as he cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the chamber maid. He walked closer girl and poked at her forehead. Her shoulders and legs were tightly bandages by the physician. Seeing that the girl was not responding, Earic went closer and caught hold of her head.

'What... are you doing?' said Sapphire. Archestrian wanted to open his mouth to say something, but he seemed to have trouble spitting it out.

'Her movements were rather inhuman don't you think.'

'Maybe she was possessed by a yokai,' said Gen, in a rather serious tone.

Earic gave his body guard a look and said, 'There are no superstition involved, trust me. Tell me... er... Archer?'

'Just call me Archie,' mumbled Archestrian.

'Yes, whatever, have you seen people like this?'

Archestrian nodded, 'This is why we ran. We... found her doing this to maids in the palace.'

'Who is "her"?' said Prince Tyler.

Earic ignored the prince, as usual.

'I see,' said Earic. He turned the maid's head left and right, up and down, and checked the back of her neck. Eventually he pulled apart a few strands of her messy bun and yelled, 'Found it!'

Five faces craned around the unfortunate head.

Above the girl's temple, hidden under her hair were two disks of the size of a bulb seed. They were tiny and glowed in a faint blue light.

'That's disturbing,' said Prince Tyler.

Earic nodded, 'Step away.' The boy reached towards a nearest box and dug up a lot of tools which ranged from crooked needles, to strange scissors and even rods with holes in them. He pulled out a long needle like object with a bent end.

'I doubt that will be a good idea,' said Gen.

'I won't kill her,' said Earic. He closed onto the girl's head and used the tool to pick on the disk. He lifted up his head disappointed, 'It's sunk into her skull. I doubt I can get it out without damaging her head. But if I can catch the transmission signals it receives maybe_'

'Earic,' said Prince Tyler, 'Talk in Althean.'

Earic frowned, 'If I can catch the orders who over is controlling her in providing her, we might_'

'Wait! Who is exactly controlling her? I have no one in mind that would be this... disturbed and weird to try to control a person. And how is that even possible.'

'Ancient technology,' Earic explained. He pulled out two of the steel ropes. Each rope had fibers of steel poking out, like hair that were freed from its braid. He used a strange type of cloth to past the fires onto the disk and connected the two wires to a hole in the array of machines that were fitted under the table next to them.

Prince Tyler leaned in closer to Gen, 'Does he do these things all the time?'

Gen nodded.

'Okay... I see why most officials are afraid of him, he is a sorcerer!'

'I am not a sorcerer,' shouted Earic while he poked at the images that were running around like magic on his glass slab. Sapphire was mesmerized while Archestrian, as usual, looked very skeptical.

'This,' said Earic, 'Is the remnant... devices used by the descendant gods. You cannot imagine the things these can do. Since the owner of our guest is one of them, I think I might be able to learn something from the transmitter.'

'And who is the owner exactly?'

'You will be surprised. She arrived a week or so ago.'

'The Queen of Shokra?'

'Aye... I hope you can keep your mouth sealed about this brother, it'd better for your skin, considering how my guard almost got killed.'

'The queen? A sorceress as well?' muttered the second prince to himself as he paced around the room. Gen leaned in closer to Earic.

'Is it wise to involve him as well?'

Earic grinned, 'Give him a reason to fight that is bigger than himself and our kingdom and he will remain as he is; a general. I don't need enemies Gen, I need allies.'

Gen nodded, 'Did you find anything?'

Earic's hand flitted across the glass as he softly tapped the surface were strange letters appeared and disappeared. There were so many characters and figures that looking at them made Gen dizzy enough to have a headache.

'Hmm... there is a heavily guarded codex somewhere, and only if I could access it I might be able to discover what she is trying to do.'

'Are we really involving ourselves in this?' asked Gen again, he was really uncomfortable with this so called business.

'Once it comes to us, dear friend. Not yet, but it's better to be prepared never the less.'

Earic was just about to press a bright box with foreign words on it when the glass slab suddenly dimmed.

'Eh... is that supposed to happen?' asked Sapphire.

The Reagent King stood frozen as he sat with his arm outstretched. 'N-no... it was not. I think, I was discovered.'

'You were what?' blurted Prince Tyler.

'I mean that she found out that someone was trying to sneak into her system.'

As usual, no one understood what he meant.

'Oh never-mind,' said Earic with a sigh. 'Just go to sleep. All of you. I will increase security around the palace.'

Archestrian stood with a rather blank face in front of the Chamber maid before he deadpanned, 'She's dead.'

'Perfect,' muttered Prince Tyler, before he stormed out of the room. His cloak fluttered behind him, accompanying his grand exit. Sapphire in the meanwhile quickly dropped the helmet that she held, cracking it in its visor.

'It wasn't me,' she exclaimed.

Gen turned hopelessly towards Earic. They both seemed to share the same thought. They had chosen very bad candidates for their mission so far.

'I just hoped she did not ruin my main frame,' Earic said. He touched the screen softly, 'because, if she did, there will be hell to pay.'

Only then did Gen realize that both of them were not having the same thoughts. 

Honorable reader,

Sorry for the late update! Hope you enjoyed this part. Poor Prince Tyler, he gets left out of things. 

Love, 

Angelina Colbe