Shadow Slave

He reached the giant chimney without too much problem, avoiding the teeth of the vicious fish-like creatures with the help of the Dark Wing and a couple of perilous leaps. The structure was wide and incredibly tall, reaching at least three hundred meters into the sky... and that was just the part visible above the water.

There were a few holes in the frame of the alloy smokestack, so Sunny did not waste time jumping through one of them. He found himself in a vast, dark well, still water radiating bone-chilling cold a few meters beneath his feet. A tiny circle of light was visible hundreds of meters above.

Sunny did not know what kind of industrial behemoth had demanded such an enormous chimney - three of them, in fact - and what kind of poison had been billowing out of them into the atmosphere in the past. However, even now, decades or even centuries later, the air inside was acrid and hard to inhale, reminding him of the worst days in the outskirts.

Grimacing, Sunny looked around, and then jumped to a piece of scaffolding a dozen or so meters above his current position.

Landing noiselessly on the weathered alloy, he smiled at Saint, who had been standing there, still as a statue, holding a bow in one hand. The taciturn knight turned her head slightly, acknowledging his arrival, then indifferently continued to watch the base of the smokestack.

He could feel Nightmare hiding in the darkness nearby, dissolved into the shadow form. The black steed moved, greeting him, and then grew still once again.

"Good work, guys."

Sunny's comm hissed.

"Get up here, I'm bored out of my mind."

He sighed, then turned into a shadow himself and ascended the tall structure, gliding upward in a wide spiral. As Sunny was going up the old alloy walls, he found himself involuntarily thinking about how long it would take Imp to eat the whole thing. Then, he caught himself and scoffed.

'Gods, what am I thinking about?'

But... it was really a lot of alloy...

At the top of the smokestack, strange machines were installed into the mouth of the well, and the walls were blackened by fire and soot. The acrid smell was somewhat reduced by the proximity to the open sky.

Jet was sitting on one of the pieces of machinery, her feet hanging above the abyssal drop. Noticing Sunny step out of the shadows, she closed the lid of an army-issued thermos, threw it into her backpack, and grinned.

"Here you are."

He nodded.

"Yeah. Sorry for making you wait."

Soul Reaper shook her head.

"I've been on a long reconnaissance mission the entire week. Honestly, having a chance to just sit and relax for a few hours was exactly what I needed."

Jet had joined the Special Reconnaissance Unit, just like Sunny. They mostly worked alone, but for the more dangerous missions, Army Command grouped two or more scouts together. As a result, the two of them continued to cooperate and fight side by side through most of the past few months. By now, they made for a very good team.

Jet stood up and looked around, studying the ancient machinery.

"Hey, do you know what these things were for?"

Sunny shook his head.

"No. Do you?"

She walked along the edge of the alloy platform and nodded.

"It's a filtration system. Basically, one furnace pushed a constant stream of toxic smoke through the smokestack, and on top of it... was another furnace. This one meant to burn all the toxicity out of the smoke and prevent it from getting into the atmosphere. So, each of these chimneys used to shoot out a colossal plume of fire into the sky. Must have been quite a sight, especially in winter."

Sunny scratched the back of his head.

"...Sounds kind of stupid."

Jet glanced at him with a bleak expression.

"Well, I'm not an engineer. It must have worked... otherwise, why waste all that time and energy on constructing filters? Anyway, let's get to the top. The faster we finish the mission, the faster we can get the hell out of this stench."

They scaled the last dozen or so meters of the smokestack using an ancient, rickety ring ladder, and climbed onto the lip of the giant chimney. It was as wide as a road. From here, most of the lake, and the city drowned by it, could be easily seen.

Sunny stared down, appreciating the surreal beauty of the desolate landscape beneath them. Almost at the same time, two of his shadows reached the top of the other two giant smokestacks.

Jet glanced at him.

"Well?"

He hesitated for a few moments.

"The one to our left is empty, but the right one... there is something hiding inside. Something... huge."

All the shadow could see were loops of flesh coiled inside the dark well of the ancient smokestack, filling almost a third of it.

Jet sighed with relief.

"Well, good. Because we need to get to the left one. Leave that thing, whatever it is, alone."

Sunny nodded, ordering his shadow to hide itself and keep an eye on the gargantuan creature.

The three towering chimneys were not too far away from each other, so getting from one to another was not a problem to them. However, it was not very safe - if something attacked you in the air, staying alive would be a challenge. So, unless someone like Kai was around, at least two people were required to keep each other safe.

Sunny temporarily borrowed Morgan's Barbow from Saint, and covered Jet as she glided across the wide gap between smokestacks using a flight Memory. She reached the next chimney, then summoned half a dozen sharp throwing stars and did the same for him - Sunny used the Dark Wing to breach the gap, and soon joined Jet.

Now, they were very close to coming in sight of the target of this mission.

He frowned.

"Do you feel it?"

Soul Reaper slowly nodded.

"Yeah. The Call is much stronger here. There must be a Category Three Gate nearby."

They walked to the opposite side of the smokestack and looked down. From that position, nothing obstructed their view of the middle of the lake.

And there, nestled between the ancient ruins...

Sunny sighed.

"That... is going to be trouble."