The hidden base of the Men in Grey was stark, sterile, and cold. Torvin, the lean man with a buzz cut and skin tight crop topmoved through the camp in a silent rage. Blood dripped from him hands as he moved. He had encountered some hunters within the Iron Forest harvesting Flowstone and mercilessly killed them in his anger. Jax, a mountain of muscle, had warned him that this could draw unwanted attention to them but Torvin was too angry to listen and walked through their camp ,ignoring everyone as he moved toward his target. Jax, followed quickly, tyring to prevent Torvin from doing something stupid and placing a calming hand on his shoulder, only to have it violently swatted away.
The small, unassuming Leader of the cell sat calmly on a stone slab at the center of the camp. He was humming a tuneless, irritating melody, his dark robes loose and comfortable. In his hand, he held a dagger and on his lap a bowl of crisp, red apples. He was peeling the fruit in a single, unbroken spiral.
"Oi!," Torvin snarled, stopping three feet from the Leader.
"Why? Why the fuck did you give the retreat order?Now that I think about it,it makes no fucking sense! We had him! After months of tracking, after sacrificing an Apex creature, after all the risks—we found S.K. He was cornered, right under our nose! We could have nabbed him and been done with the whole bloody, miserable affair! We had the bitch!"
The Leader didn't look up, his humming continuing, the thin spiral of apple peel falling into the polished steel bowl.
"A poor choice of words, Torvin. I assure you, my mother was a decent woman."
"Don't you give me your smarmy bullshit!" Torvin roared. His composure finally snapped. He backhanded the bowl of peeled fruit and spiraled peels across the ground, sending the apples scattering like shrapnel. In the next instant, Torvin's massive hand had wrapped around the Leader's collar, effortlessly lifting the smaller man off the ground.
"Look at me, you useless little prick! Tell me why you wasted this opportunity!"
The Leader's eyes, hidden under his hood seemed to glow as they reflected the light pouring in from the moon above, finally met Torvin's. He didn't struggle. He didn't even bother to grip the paring knife still resting loosely in his other hand. He simply sighed—a long, weary sound—and said, very calmly, "Hold still, Torvin."
At the back of Torvins neck, a tattoo—the stylized, intricate shape of a perfect blue Rose pierced by a sword—began to glow with a faint, internal azure light.
The light pulsed once.
Torvin's rage and the physical tension in his arm vanished in a single, shattering instant. His body went rigid, his muscles locked into an immovable block of flesh. His fingers released their grip, and the Leader dropped lightly to the stone floor. Jax, who had been frozen in horror, took a hesitant step forward. "Leader, please! He's just frustrated! He didn't mean it—"
The Leader gave him a chilling glare, cold and absolute, stopping Jax dead. He then slowly picked up the paring knife from the floor, his eyes never leaving Torvin. He walked forward until the tip of the knife was resting on the Saint's sternum exposed. The Rose on Torvin's nape began to burn with agonizing intensity as he struggled against the unnatural immobility but the more he went against the order,the more it burned. The flesh around it began to redden and smoke.
"Feel that, Torvin?" the Leader asked, his voice soft, almost conversational. He slowly brought the blade to Torvin's face and with an almost casual gesture pushed it into his left eye and began to twist the tip of the blade.Blood streamed down the mans eye like crimson tears but he could not react as he was still under the compulsion of the Binding Array.
"That is the condition of your freedom. Your rage is understandable. But your lack of foresight is why I command, and you follow. You blame me for the escape, but your actions and the beast's failure are what created the opportunity I leveraged."
The Leader twisted one last time and pulled the knife away, turning it over to examine the eyeball stuck to its tip.
"We found S.K., yes. But Roric Thorne—the Hunter—appeared shortly after and slew the beast. Worse, the heir to the territory was right there. He became a victim of the beast's ramapage."
The Leader stepped back.
"Now, do you honestly believe Lord Alaric Dukker, the Lord Protector, would not come out personally? What do you think would happen if he came and found any of you're sorry asses there?"
Torvin's voice was strained, thick with effort as he fought the compulsion.
"We are Saints. We could… we could take him."
The Leader threw his head back and let out a single, sharp laugh that held no humor.
"Sure. You are Saints. You even outscale me in terms of Ascent, I know. But observe your current condition, Torvin. Notice how you, a man who could level the entire city, are utterly immobilized by me? Power is not everything. Conditions can be created where even a weakling like myself can command an entire platoon. That condition is the absolute purity of my 'blood'."
He flicked the eyeball off the paring knife and extended it upward, the bloodied blade reflecting the cold moonlight filtering in through the trees.
"You are all nothing but lowborn scum who have been thrown away then elevated and redeemed through service. You have a duty to me. I can end your lives, Torvin, with a single mental command. Do not forget that."
The Leader released his hold and the Rose tattoo on Torvin's nape instantly dimmed, and the Saint was released. He stumbled, catching himself against the stone wall, his shoulders slumped in defeat and shame.
"L...," Torvin mumbled the leaders name, his fury extinguished, replaced by bitter submission.
The Leader walked past him, bending to retrieve the scattered apples and the empty bowl.
Torvin watched him go, then straightened, his eye blazing with a cold, simmering hatred. He spoke in a low, dangerous growl.
"I won't forget this. I will find a way to kill him."
"Alright trash, play your role as a tool and I may consider allowing it." The leader said mockingly.
Jax quickly stepped foward.
"Leader," he called out, his voice returning to its normal, even tone.
"With the city on high alert, how are we going to finish our goal of capturing the only one who can work the Ancient Relics?"
The Leader paused wiping away the dirt with his cloak. He turned, a hint of something calculating and hungry as he took a bite and slowly chewd, apredatory smile forming.
"I have a plan."