I'm running again. Just like last time. I only wish my mother was here to help me now.
The sewer stinks like rotting flesh and feces rolled together. The distant, constant, shouts of pursuers propel me forward. After twenty minutes of non-stop running, I reach a four way junction. The tunnel opens up to a circular room with four new tunnels branching out. A roar blasts from one, probably a monster of some kind. I hear approaching footsteps, so I dash down the middle tunnel, humming a little tune along the way. Blue smoke puffs out of my mouth, forming into an illusion of myself standing in the middle of the junction.
"Look, there he is!" A voice cries out.
I slam myself against the wall of the tunnel, staying as tucked into the shadows as possible. Mentally, I command my illusion to run down the other tunnel, where the roar had come from.
"Hurry up! After him!" Yells another voice.
The footsteps fade into the distance. Everything goes quiet for a moment but is quickly cut by another set of footsteps. These are slow, methodical. Not at all like the others.
"Y'know, those weak illusions you use don't work on everyone." A raspy, slick voice speaks calmly. "Now why don't you come out and face me? After all, I can smell you."
I try to run, but something cold wraps around me, tearing through my skin and tying my arms to my sides. I'm yanked backwards, into the sewage water. A figure, wearing the skull of a dragon as a mask, looks down at me. They have on a black jacket with a hood covering their head, making it impossible to determine their race. On the side of their neck, I can see the tattoo of the house of Wind and my heart sinks into my stomach.
"Looks like you're all tied up." The figure chuckles. "You didn't really think you could escape us, did you?"
"Whatever my father's paying you, I can get you more." I plead with the figure, who grabs me by the collar of my shirt.
"Ha!" The figure laughs dryly as they pull me in close. "Who said I was sent here by your daddy?"
"But your tattoo, you're part of the Inner Circle right?" I don't understand what this person is thinking at all. "If you don't turn me in, you'll lose all your ranking as a Bounty Hunter. Who could you be working for that's worth that?"
"Do you want me to take you to your father?" The figure slings me over their shoulder and starts walking down the tunnel, away from the junction. "You gave me the impression that you didn't want to go back."
I let my head fall. The figure is right. I don't want to go back. My father would just kill me, so maybe whatever this bounty hunter has in store for me will be better than certain death. Even if they turn me into the Sellsword knights, I'll just be sent to prison in Vertalara to await a fair trial.
"Got nothing to say?" I hear a hint of sadness in the figure's voice. "Most of my bounties at least struggle a little, y'know? This just plain ain't right."
I try to kick the figure in the side, but my legs won't move. In fact, I can't move any part of my body at all.
"I-I can't move!" I'm beginning to panic, remembering being tied up and thrown in the wardrobe when I was younger. "Why can't I move?"
"That's more like it!" The figure laughs, pure bliss in every chuckle, giggle, and snort. "That's my homemade neutralizer taking control of your motor functions. It'll still let you talk though, that way I can hear you screaming! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"You're sick." I spit. "If I was king, I would have you deranked."
"Good thing Hawk is the king and not you, boy." They laugh even harder. "Even though I don't know how much longer that'll last."
"What?" I must have misheard him. "What did you just say?"
"Nevermind. I suppose even that much will go over your head." The figure laughs again, this one darker, more menacing.
"You guys are planning to overthrow my father aren't you?" I already know the answer.
"Ha, ha. You're pretty quick kiddo." The figure laughs a third time, this one obviously fake. "Some of us have a bet, you see, about whether or not Hawk is actually immortal like they say. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?"
"If I did, I wouldn't tell you." Of course, I don't know anything. My father has always been extremely secretive and in the twenty-three years I've been alive, I barely know anything about him.
"So you don't know. That's rich." The figure says, like they just read my thoughts. "I guess we'll all find out together tonight then."
"What's happening tonight? Don't tell me that's when you plan on overthrowing my father." I say, trying to get the figure to let some information slip.
"Vanhiel's got something planned for you and your little group of vigilantes. Oh, and we've got something in store for daddy too, if y'know what I mean." The figure stops walking and sets me down into the sewage infested water on my back. I can see a sewer grate above me and a ladder leading up to it. "Alright kid, we're here."
The grate swings open and the last of the evening sunlight pours into the tunnel.
"Sneaker, did you get him?" A familiar voice calls out from outside and the silhouette of a figure in a very distinctive hat stands over the exit.
"Yeah, I got em Heil!" The figure, Sneaker, yells back. "He won't be able to move for the next few hours, so imma need some help hauling him up."
"Alright. I'm sending a hook down!" Right on cue, a rope with a hook on the end comes flying down into the tunnel.
Sneaker places the hook on the chain that's around me, then tugs the rope twice. I feel myself being slowly pulled upwards, out of the filthy sewer water and out into the sunny Denzen streets. The next thing I see is the face of the figure who is hoisting me up. Vanhiel.
"Good to see you again!" He smirks. "I hope you and his highness had a moment to catch up."
"Screw you." I spit right in his eye, which he slams shut, dropping me and screaming out in both disgust and rage.
"You stupid, stupid little snargle!" He screams, whipping a pistol from his side and putting the barrel against my forehead. "You better remember who you're dealing with. I can put a bullet in that little head of yours at any moment that I choose, then who's gonna come save you?"
"You're going to regret this Vanhiel." I say, still unable to move. "When my father finds out, he'll have you…"
"Have me what?" Vanhiel pulls the firing pin back on his pistol. "Let me tell you a little secret. Nobody needs or cares about your father. In fact, we don't really need a king at all. We've all just been putting up with it because that's the way things have been for hundreds of years. But all of that ends tonight. No more kings. No more house of Wind. No more Inner Circle. No more people telling us what to do and how to do it. From here on out, us bounty hunters control our own fate, and nobody, not even Hawk, can stop us."