After a quick visit to Silk Hand Mike, the only high end fence Draken trusts, he and his crew sit at a familiar bar depositing bag after bag of gold with Bodrick, the somewhat more trusted inn keeper.

“You kids rob a bank or somethin? Scratch that, don’t wanna know. ” Bodrick loads the sacks of coin into a medium sized wooden chest. “Watch the tap while I put this downstairs in the good safe.” Wooden stairs squeak their protest beneath his weight as the barman climbs down a trap door under the liquor shelf.

“We run this scam once a month and we’ll pull in more than we ever did pickin pockets.” Draken says, taking in the look of hope and excitement in all of their eyes and swelling with pride which transforms into confusion as that hope shifts to worry in each pair.

“What new scam would that be, nephew?”

Draken turns to meet the acne scarred face of his nineteen year old uncle, known to the streets as Top Boy. The rakish man’s braided hair jangles as he hops up to sit on the bar resting his foot on the stool as he pours himself a large flagon of ale.

“Heard you got picked in the mage trials to be a wizard’s apprentice. Figured you’d be cashing out your retirement but it don’t sound to me like your planning to retire at all.” His charming grin washes away. “It also don’t sound like your planning on cutting me in.”

The knife is at Draken’s neck instantly.

“You haven’t lost your touch.” Draken says, eyeing his uncle nervously. “But I doubt you’ll kill your only family.” The knife slides up his face slowly creeping like a spider until it stops cold on his cheek.

“That don’t mean I won’t mess up your face.” The boy winces in sudden pain as the knife point knicks his skin. “You could use a few scars, you still draw leers from perverts.” Jumping down from the bar, Top Boy gets right in Draken’s face, his eyes deeply serious.

“I don’t like you running rackets without telling me, especially if it can mess up the good thing you got. It won’t do you any good to lose out on a lifetime of harvesting loot as a wizard just to get your mitts on some quick cash now.”

Draken grins despite his uncle’s rebuking eyes. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you saw the haul we brought into Silk Hand today. All those bags Bodrick took down, those were gold!” Draken can easily spot the greed sparked in his uncle’s cool eyes but is surprised to see it quashed.

“And what if that wizard finds out and tosses you back into the streets?”

Draken takes a sip of ale, trying not to appear startled by his uncle’s harsh tone.

“Not gonna happen,” he says. Top Boy snatches the mug from his hand before he can take another sip.

“I’m fucking serious, you have a real chance for a good life here!”

The boy has a sneaking suspicion his uncle won’t just drop the subject. He checks around for eavesdroppers and finding none leans in close to whisper.

“I’m serious too, it seems I’m so special that they can’t get rid of me.”

“They?” Top Boy asks, not missing the plural shift.

The grin on Draken’s face is almost sinister, chilling in fact. “I can do it all, witchcraft, wizardry and sorcery.”

“Don’t joke,” Top Boy says. The mere idea of his nephew with that kind of power is a little appalling. Draken might be sharp but he’s a piece of work, just thinking of him as a wizard is bad enough.

“It’s no joke, I’m a freak.” Draken’s grin broadens to unflatteringly reveal his missing tooth. “I got three masters, I’m learning everything at once and it’s completely nuts. There’s no way i get more than a slap on the wrist for anything short of hurting someone and what i’m working doesn’t hurt nobody, hell the victims don’t even know they’re victims.”

The boy can see the wheels beginning to turn in his uncle’s brain, reluctantly at first not willing to indulge in the possibilities but soon gaining momentum and speed.

“You’re not lying.” He says as the ideas begin to form so fast and loud that Draken’s untrained gift can’t keep track.

“Could it work?” Top Boy asks, to himself more that Draken. So many pictures flash in his criminal mind that Draken begins to get dizzy just from looking.

“Could what work?” He asks at last, unable to even follow his uncle’s train of thought.

“Come with me,” Top boy says, his tone brokering no argument.

“Make sure they both eat their vegetables.” Draken tells Warren as he throws on his cloak and follows his uncle out into the street.

***

The mansion is old and imposing, perched at the top of a bluff and bordered by the forest at the edge of town. Four black towers shoot into the sky like clawed fingers of a misshapen hand grasping for something unseen. These four weird spires are visible for miles, one of the many strange landmarks of the city.

“Do you know what this place is?”

Draken shrugs. “Everyone knows it’s the first High Wizard’s castle. He lived there while they were still building the city, before the wizard tower went up. Did I pass my history test?”

“Accurate enough but do you know who lives there now?” Top Boy asks with an almost imperceptible edge to his voice. Something about the way his eyes never leave the castle touches on Draken’s inner alarm.

“It’s some mysterious count according to all the rumors, a rich foreigner who bought the place years ago.” The odd look in his uncle’s eyes tells him that he’s hit on the right subject. It’s as if he’s looking into another time and place and what he sees boils within him.

“The Count of Monte Cristo.” Top Boy says after a long pause, his voice seething with unrepressed hatred. “Your father.”

The revelation hits Draken like a punch to the face. He stumbles a step backwards, staring at the castle then back at his uncle. He recalls years of unanswered questions and what he now knows to be lies told straight to his face. His uncle had always protested ignorance yet freely speculated to draw attention away from the fact that he knew. He feels a fire burning inside him and growing with every second.

“You lying son of a bitch!” He shouts. “You’ve been playing me for a fool my whole life.”

He’s just about to take a swing when Top Boy, quick as ever grabs him by the shoulders and shoves him hard. As he topples into scratching branches and crumbling leaves his uncles weight is quickly on top of him, holding him place.

“Keep quiet,” he hisses. “His men patrol the perimeter.”

“My whole fucking life.” Draken repeats, anger simmering into a fine bubbling soup. “How many times have you lied to my face?” Draken’s fists tighten and pebbles begin to shift on the ground around him. Top Boy notices, his eyes widening in alarm.

“Cut that shit out before they see it.” He whispers. “Look, what would you have done if i told you?” He points to the count’s manor. “You think he wants you? You think he doesn’t know about you? MY father begged him to take responsibility and died for his trouble.”

Draken’s eyes land on the castle, it seems so close and yet so far. He can imagine those claw like spires gripping at his heart. The idea of not being wanted shouldn’t hurt after all this time but somehow it does.

“That’s right,” Top Boy says. “He made you, killed your grandfather and left your mother to feed us all. He’s the reason she resorted to whoring, as guilty of her death as the bastard who killed her.”

“I don’t forgive you.” Draken says through gritted teeth. “It was my right to know.”

“Maybe,” Top Boy replies. “But I don’t apologize. You’d have only gotten yourself killed trying to rob him. I know how your personality too well to think for a minute you won't.”

“Why exactly did you decide to tell me this now if you know I’ll try to take what he owes me?”

Top boy grins, he has a lot more missing teeth than Draken but most of them have bits of gold in their place.

“Truth is I wanna rob him too. Been planning it for thirteen years but there’s a problem. He’s warded the whole damn property redundantly with spells he bought from witches wizards and sorcerers. It would take three mages to negotiate a safe path. Needless to say it ain't easy to find three mages willing to rob a place at the same time. But you can do it or will be able to soon enough. Are you in or out? ”

Draken smiles glancing once more at the castle the sight of which makes him feel like unwanted garbage. He can’t stand the thought of seeing those towers every day and feeling that primal sense of rejection.

“I’m so far in that you couldn’t get me out of you tried.”

The Count of Monte Cristo, sounds like a pretty fake title to Draken’s ear. But fake or not, count or pretender he will pay for his crimes in gold. That much the boy is willing to bet his life on.

***

Shun feels a cold pressure building inside of him as he runs through the narrow corridor. The shrill wail of the siren makes the shiver running up his spine a constant companion.

He stumbles as the deck shakes beneath his feet and makes the very bad mistake of looking out of the porthole. It’s not so much the unnaturalness of seeing clouds level with his eyeline or the ghastliness of the smoking hellscape beneath them but the sheer horror of watching a skyship identical to his own sinking into those clouds as it blazes brighter than the war blasted inferno below and vanishes to nothing like a leaf in a firestorm, that’s what gets to him. He thanks the gods for those pills he was ordered to take to keep calm. Because if the way he feels is calm he’d hate to find out how he’d feel without them.

Pushing himself from the window and moving his feet as fast as he can he bumps into a large body and is startled to see a familiar face. It’s now or never he decides, reaching into his warm coat pocket and producing a letter so filled with love and tenderness that it seems to scream out in protest for being exposed to such a violent world.

“Just in case I don’t make it back, make sure it gets to my girl.” Shun hands the letter to the big man and feels an equally sized piece of paper take its place.

“In case we all go up in flames, let's hope the gods ain't so cruel as to slag us both.” A slap on the shoulder and the man has moved on and so has Shun, both running headlong into duty so harrowing no sane man would perform it. In the young trooper’s case that duty lies before him in the bombing bay. Three hundred rockets twice again the size of a man stand balanced side by side secured to a vertical rack atop a bomb bay doors. Number thirty two, that’s the one that Shun finds himself strapping into. The six buckles click as he pulls them tight.

“Never thought they’d be crazy enough to send us out.” The pilot strapped to the other side of the rocket, Jumpei says. “What kinda nut came up with this rig?”

“I don’t know but I love him to death.” Shun adjusts the scope on his lightning cannon before checking the charge on his battery packs. “Back home I never touched anything more lethal than a shovel, this here in my hands is power. If I gotta die for it that’s just the breaks, better than a long life eating mush.” He doesn’t know how the tracker in his scope works but even though the ship he can see the vague silhouettes of his targets miles away.

“You go right ahead and die, I on the other hand plan to live forever.” Jumpei laughs.

Shun’s reply is cut off by the sound of trumpets and he arches his head to see the catwalk above him. There stands a grey haired commander with a thick beard, everyone on the ship know him by sight but none know his name. He is only The Commander, master of the experimental Rocket Troopers.

“Today is the day,” he says. “The day our nation rebukes it’s past and embraces the future. For too long Valis has been the sick man of the world, mocked and pitied by every realm near and far. No longer, soon the world will bow before us in fear. Not forty years ago this misbegotten kingdom burned our fields and raped our grandmothers, now their country lays crushed beneath our feet and we are poised to strike the final blow. Their capitol is before us, protected only by four doddering old mages. These freaks think they have power because they command the weird and unnatural. But I say that we are the more powerful! We who thanks to our glorious emperor have mastered the forces of science and discipline. The mages will fight you as individuals, each thinking himself better than the other. But you are better than that, you are Rocket Troopers, you are a mighty swarm they cannot stand against, give them a taste of how strong Valis really is!” The Commander salutes as the bomb bay doors open, blasting Shun with an updraft of surprisingly hot air. One by one the rockets drop into the red clouds of dusk and Shun feels himself falling before he sees the clouds around him.

The jolt of the rocket’s ignition feels like a kick to the head. He beats down the feeling of vomit as he tries to focus on his targeting system. Ther forty degrees to the east, a figure almost the size of an ant. He turns the knob on his end of the rocket, signalling Jumpei with the bearing.

He feels the kick of the side thrusters slam him as the rocket turns.

As they exit the cloud bank a scene of chaos assaults the trooper’s eyes. Smoke and fire swirl in the sky as explosions blast all around in every direction. The bright trails of his fellow rocket roopers fill the sky like confused shooting stars and blasts of lightning issue forth greater than an enraged thunderstorm as his fellows seek their prey. He adjusts his scope, trying to zoom in on the mage to get a clear shot. He loses his aim as the rocket violently shifts and he feels a disturbance in the air as a whistling blade sails past. The concussion rocks him against his tight straps as a rocket explodes nearby. He adjusts his scope zooming in tight enough to see the color of the bastard’s bile green robes as he casts another spell. A shimmering flare dazzles his eyes as rockets start falling from the sky by the dozen. Leaves flutter in the air as he zooms past a falling tree with two troopers strapped to it.

“A fucking sorcerer!” He feels himself shouting rather than hears, nothing can be heard over the constant roar of the rocket. He knew they were fighting master mages but he had prayed until now that none of them would be sorcerers. The sheer chaos of their magic deliver too many fates worse than death to immagine. He pulls the trigger just as another blast rocks his aim.

He misses and more than that feels the rocket veering wildly off course. He signals Jumpei to adjust his heading but gets no reply in the thrusters. For the first time he feels a warm dampness all over him. Fear pounds in his chest as he glances around the rocket to see a pile of shredded meat hanging from the straps where Jumpei should be. Everything in his stomach ejects into the wind. He works on his straps, desperate to free himself but stops dead.

The sorcerer is closer now than he’s ever been before. He takes aim, knowing that he only has one more shot in his battery pack and no time to use it. The mage is about to strike again with another devastating spell. Shun squeezes the trigger as tight as he can and is briefly blinded by the flash of lightning. He doesn’t hear the thunder over the rocket, but feels it like the dim echo of a drum in his head. When he can see again there is no sorcerer standing atop the tower, there is no tower only flame and ash.

He pulls his straps loose, jumping free of the rocket. He’s so tired that he just lets himself fall, basking in the rush of air. It would be so nice not to pull the ripcord and just be done. Unfortunately his hands work on their own and he feels himself drifting on the air slowly down into the city. As his feet touch ground his mind returns. He realizes he’s in truly deep shit. As soon as the last mage goes down the bombers come to level the city which he happens to be standing in. He pats his side and sighs in relief at the presence of the flare gun.

“Just need to get to high ground.” He says to himself.

Just as he unclasps and abandons his parachute he hears shouting.

“There he is, get him!”

The enemy charges forward with spear and sword brandishing like steel death on the wind.

He runs as fast as a condemned man whose broken free of the executioner. The scum sucking savages are at his heels. Side arm, he forgot all about it but pulls free his Mac 10 and sprays the pursuing troops with bullets. That gives the bastards pause, they barely know what a gun is.

That’s why he knows Valis will rule the world, mass produced weapons better than anything a cooky mage could ever cook up and men trained to use them. No force on the planet is equipped to deal with the genius that is their emperor. The man responsible for elevating science and technology to surpass magic. Shun is glad for the distracted train of thought as he approaches a slag strewn structure. He’s reasonably sure he can make it to the top but had better hurry, he can hear the shock wearing off from his enemies being replaced by rage. He bolts up the steps taking them two at a time.

Finally at the top of the building he looks into the madness enshrouded sky and wonders if sanity can ever be restored to the world. He swallows his fear and fires the flare.

It doesn't take more than five minutes for a rocket trooper to kick up smoke and dust as he lands.

“I hope you can shoot, my guy’s dead.” The pilot says.

Shun wordlessly unstraps the body. He recognizes the face in some dim part of his brain. His name was Jim, one of his best friends. He’s too numb to care and lets Jim fall unceremoniously to the dirt as he straps himself in and checks his gun for charge. He hears soldiers coming up the stairs and signals the pilot to lift off. Three more mages to kill.