Enter the Knight-Raven… We catch up with Emma and Anya, now the Knight Raven, in the Knight-Gallery hidden deep beneath the Lothrin Estate located along the eastern edge of the Palisades District of the city of New Alexandria on Earth #8193, in the year 1982 A.D. [warm and inviting tone]...
With one last kiss to her beloved Emma, Knight-Raven closes the cockpit, opens the hangar door, and flies off into the night in search of wicked monsters and stolen children. She follows Tenjin's directions to the most likely location of the child killers who have been plaguing the Narrows for the past several weeks, leaving bodies piled up and families destroyed.
(Location Change)
Knight-Raven reaches the location Tenjin suggested. The area is along the northeastern edge of the Narrows. It appears to be a burnt-out and shot-up youth center. Dark and condemned, it now stands derelict, waiting for a demolition that will never come. The husk of what was once a place of joy and laughter for children in need now looms forgotten and left to rot, like a million other decaying vestiges of better times littering the Narrows. The piercing far-off lights of the nearby Tartarus Correctional-District and the towering Neo-Colossia just beyond that slice through the dark choking smog that ever blankets the Narrows like toxic mist that never really fades.
Tenjin:
"According to my calculations, the child killers should be operating out of that building."
Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
"Makes sense. It's the perfect place. This deep into the Haunted Edge of the Narrows… No one around to hear the screaming. And if a child escapes, they would be picked off by some other predator long before they got to anyone who would help them. And no cop will ever set foot in this section of the Narrows again without a damn good reason."
The Narrator:
Knight-Raven activates her M.V. Visor in order to scope out the area more closely from her concealed perch overlooking the area.
Tenjin:
"Why is that, master?"
Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
"Every cop in the city is terrified of this place. They think it's haunted. Check the city database for what happened in this part of the Narrows on Christmas Eve 1968… To make a long story short, starting at midnight that Christmas Eve, for six hours, "Protect and Serve" became "Purge and Slaughter." And when it was done, the cops had either killed or forced out every poor family and unfortunate resident in this district… The cops got medals and raises, and the poor got cremated and dumped."
Tenjin:
"I've found the records of that day… The Narrows Christmas Massacre 1968… It's horrifying. Can people really do these monstrous things to each other?"
Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
"That and more, I'm afraid, Tenjin… that and more."
Tenjin:
"I'm counting 45 heat signatures coming from the basement of the youth center. However, only six of them appear to be armed and patrolling. The rest appear to be viewing some kind of performance… ceremony… or maybe a ritual?"
Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
"Only six guards … Well, I guess I'm not getting that good workout I was hoping for tonight… but this is nothing like what I was expecting. I thought we were dealing with some sort of run-of-the-mill pedo-ring, but this is something else… something different. Tenjin, run a blood scan of all the people inside and compare them to the city's central blood archives. See if any of them match the currently missing kids. I'm moving in for a closer look."
The Narrator:
Knight-Raven glides down to the roof of the run-down youth center. From what she can tell, the guards are patrolling in three sets of two. She quickly maps out the paths of their patrols and calculates that there is one point of intersection between all three patrol paths. She decides to use a well-timed attack at that spot to disable all the guards at once. Her plan determined, she stealthily enters the building through the skylight and moves into position to wait for the patrols to meet up at her chosen spot.
Just as predicted, within a few minutes, all three guard patrols converge about a dozen feet below the shadowed rafters where Knight-Raven waits, ready to strike. Knight-Raven carefully scans the surrounding area one last time to make sure her action won't be detected by anyone other than her intended targets. With the all-clear, she arms one of her P.N.L. (Photo-Kinetic Neural Lockdown) grenades and lets it drop. The device explodes once it reaches approximate eye-level, with the guards unleashing an overwhelming but brief flicker of brilliant light. It instantly drops all the guards at the same time.
Tenjin:
"I've finished running the scans and cross-checks you requested, Master. As suspected, three of the blood scans match children who went missing yesterday. 14-year-old Andrew Hawkins, 12-year-old Enolia Hawkins and 12-year-old Gabriel F. Mason"
Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
"I see. So the three on stage are our missing kids."
The Narrator:
Knight-Raven continues her silent conversation with Tenjin as she activates her suit's active camo systems and sneaks down into the basement.
Tenjin:
Precisely. However, the blood scan of the 4th person on the stage with them does not match any citizen in either the city's blood registry or the global registry… so I took the liberty of running a comprehensive DNA scan on the 4th individual. Their DNA has several unique aspects not found in any species currently discovered in the history of the planet."
Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
That's impossible…
The Narrator:
The muffled sounds of elitist country-club laughter and frivolity tainted by the clear sound of terrified and sobbing children grows louder and louder as Knight-Raven descends stairway after stairway, closing in on one of the less crowded doors to the basement.
Tenjin:
That's why I ran the test twice, Master. But the results remain positive. Concerning the other 41 heat signatures. They returned blood-matches protected by Tier VII Security-Lock, making getting matches impossible at the moment. Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
Tenjin, I want you to run every test you can think of on that fourth person's DNA and have a full report ready for me by tomorrow… Oh, and for the last time, stop calling me Master.The Narrator:
The kidnapped children in the basement suddenly erupt into a mess of violent, horrific screams far louder than before. Knight-Raven kicks in the heavy metal door to the basement, sending it flying off its hinges and announcing her presence to the rest of the room with a loud bang. The whole room begins fleeing in panic through the many other secret exits and passages out of the basement as the mysterious fourth individual that had been on the stage with the children suddenly seems to fade out of reality like a retreating ghost. Seeing her opportunity to get to her older brother, Enolia rushes to Andrew's side.
Knight-Raven cannot help but notice that all the fleeing individuals are dressed in strange ceremonial garb and masks fashioned in a manner reminiscent of what one might expect to see in a stage production of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She lets them all flee, deciding instead to focus on the children's clearly urgent medical needs. She rushes over to the badly injured children and immediately runs a medical scan of their current condition. The scans show that the bloody and bruised Enolia appears to be suffering from internal bleeding and some cracked ribs.
The eldest boy; Andrew, had clearly just been forced to sodomize the younger boy beneath him while the fourth entity sodomized him. Both boys show clear, fresh wounds indicative of being beaten and tortured; both appear to have been freshly dosed with LSD. Knight-Raven's medical scan of the children shows that Gabriel is suffering from severe and certainly fatal internal bleeding from being so roughly penetrated. Andrew also appears to be bleeding from his rectum, though the damage is mild in his case, leaving his many other wounds and injuries as the more serious medical concern.
Tenjin:
Contacting emergency medical services now!
Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
Forgot it, Tenjin. Medical Services don't respond to the Narrows under any circumstances without special authorization. Call Oskar instead. He should already be on patrol right now, anyway. Have him come arrest the guards I knocked out while I get these kids
The Narrator:
All three children scream in panic and terror at the sight of the Knight-Raven, clearly still in a state of sheer terror. Needing to act fast, Knight-Raven fires a burst of sleeping gas over the children. They drift instantly off to sleep. With the children sedated, Knight-Raven summons the Omen and rushes the three children to the nearest Lothrin owned medical center.
With her first-ever mission as the Knight-Raven now complete, Anya returns home to her beloved Emma, who stands waiting with a fresh home-cooked dinner already prepared and a perfectly made pot of Anya's favorite tea. Anya feels so blessed to have such a loving and supportive partner. However, she is enraged and saddened that she could not arrest any of the kidnappers, but she is also grateful she was at least able to save two of the children. As she climbs into bed that night next to her dearest lover, her mind is plagued with terrible questions about that fourth individual.
Anya Lothrin / Knight-Raven:
Who were they?… What were they? And how do I stop them if they show up again?