"So what's inside?" Yossarian asked, walking towards Greg, his voice echoing off the steel crate walls. Greg in response lifted a large pack of three green canisters and a tube that extended to a slick thin gun.
"A fricken flamethrower!" He shouted, joy radiating from his face, his eyes wide with glee. He swung the pack on his back, strapping it tightly on his body, "Ooooh I can't wait to use this."
Yossarian scornfully eyed the weapon, "Do you even know how to use it?"
Greg chuckled in response, facing back towards the crate he flung out a mask. It was a wooden mask with the front painted, revealing great flames covering the entirety of its front, a black gas mask protruding through the flames.
"Sammy went all out for us. I don't even know how he got these rare fuckers, ya rarely see them available on the market." Greg giggled, flipping the mask in his hands.
"There is a reason why they're a scarce commodity. They're dangerous, can fuck with your head. It's not safe getting a person's memories forced into your mind. Plus they're banned by the party." Yossarian informed, shoving his hands in his pockets, before looking into the crate. "Is there one for me?"
Greg grunted, pulling out another mask. Its front painted with a middle-aged man, his face attached to a beer bottle. "Yep, don't know why you would need it, you've got a mask already. I think your stuff is in the other crate," Greg indicated to the crate behind them, tossing the mask to Yossarian.
"Trust me it ain't a mask you want to be wearing, and that's why I'm warning you. Hand me the crowbar." Yossarian warned, gripping the crowbar from Greg, who was still infatuated with the flamethrower, playing with the tubes and flickers.
Yossarian ripped open the crate, revealing a bundle of clothing and tools nestled in straw. He started by taking a small necklace and laying it around his neck before putting on a fairly new black coat. He then strapped a brown leather belt around his waist, strapped with a leather pouch and a cloth-covered disk. After that, he put on an assortment of rings and charms on his person.
He let out a massive sigh, "Good to have them back on," He declared.
Greg grunted, "You've got all that enchanted gear and you're not even willing to share the smallest ring on ya."
"Nope! Especially not to someone like you, who would just sell it after a few days, bored from the quick high of power." Yossarian grumbled, shifting through the straw, finding a handful of grenades. "Now that's shocking."
"Well if you're ready, shall we get started?" Greg inquired, putting the mask close to his face. Yossarian nodded in response, the two placed their individual masks on their head. The both of them felt a sudden convulsion, the wooden mask sinking into their skin, attaching itself to them.
Suddenly memories started flying through their head, information not known to them previously coming to them naturally. The sensation of something else, something foreign penetrating into their mind.
Greg's vision flickered to that of a book in his hands, sitting on a couch. Then it changed to him staring at a young blond woman with a joyful smile, tears streaming down her face, he started to feel tears swell up in his own eye's. The memory changed to a crowded station, men separating themselves from their families, all draped in a similar light blue uniform. Greg stood there himself, seeing the blond-haired woman again, her belly larger, yet her face was sad, a sort of desperation was evident in her expression.
Greg felt a deep sadness and regret well within him before his vision changed again. Now he was in a poorly constructed trench, mud and dirty flying onto him, a flamethrower similar to the one Greg currently had, was gripped tightly in his hands. However the man didn't move, Greg realized. He lay there, his body sunk in mud, a red-tinged colour mixed into the dark brown mud around his gut.
Greg snapped back to reality after that, his body heavily shaking and doubled over, air harshly sucked in and out from the small holes in the wooden mask.
"Ya good?" Yossarian asked, similarly double over, body shaking.
"Yeah... yeah I'm good. That was just ... something else," Greg muttered, his voice trembling.
"That's why I warned you," Yossarian replied, slowly standing up, holding the grenades in his hands with newfound confidence. "So what did you see?"
"Some soldier I think, French if I'm correct. Must have been during the Great Invasion," Greg informed. He gripped the flamethrower tightly, his mind swirling with new information of its functions. "Sadly it wasn't all baguettes and croissants."
The two started walking out of the crate, "Is that all France is to you, baguettes and croissants?" Yossarian remarked, shaking the grenades in his hands.
"Well isn't that's all there is. Never been but It can't be too far from the truth." Greg commented, hands adjusting with the tubes connected to the cylinders on his back.
"Not even close, it's more like baguettes and croissants with a side of communism now. But in the countryside, it's different. There's so much land there, too much for the party to vigilantly patrol, meaning there's plenty of freedom. And the lands old there, still connected strongly to the time of the older orders."
Greg grunted back, before stopping by a clump of workers standing close to a bundle of wooden planks. The two started to get noticed now, many people nearby stopping what they were doing to watch them.
Greg planted the gun to his hip before pulling down on the weapon's trigger, a torrent of flame shooting out and onto the bundle of wood. The bright orange flames lighting up the darkening night.
"Now that's what I call freedom!" He shouted, his eye's wide, the flames light igniting his gaze. "Don't need no countryside or nothin' to have fun," He smirked to Yossarian.
Yossarian shook his head, before pulling the pins on the grenades in his hands and tossing them into the crowds of onlookers. The grenades spat out thick white smoke. "Don't cause too much damage, we don't wanna get too much attention." Yossarian cried out to Greg, who was wildly firing waves of flames aimlessly.
"Bastards lost it," Yossarian muttered under his mask. He stared into the dull grey canister in his hands, the mask poorly reflected in it. Yossarian recalled the drunk man he saw in his memories. The man abused his children physically and financially through his problem, only to end up drafted to war. The man died alone in a crumbling building, regret for his actions welling up inside of him whilst he lived his last moments, the building burying him alive. The crumbled building becoming his tomb.
Yossarian felt a bitter taste enter his mouth. He tossed the grenade, the man's training guiding him in judging the distance and power needed.
They slowly made their way to the intended warehouse, people running by either trying to control the quickly rising fires or aimlessly coughing and wiping away flowing tears.
Suddenly a truck drifted out of the warehouse in front of them, the wheels churning as it made a hard turn towards them. Yossarian tapped Greg on the shoulder, indicating to the truck, "Our ride is here."
Greg's face seemed to drop with disappointment, His newfound joy coming to a quick end.
The truck came to a slamming halt next to them. Aart appeared from the trucks covered back, his hand extended out. Yossarian quickly climbed in the truck, Greg getting a last quick spray in before joining them.
"You couldn't have waited a little longer!" They heard Aeron cry from the front of the truck, Aart nodding his head in agreement towards the two.
"Hey, I'm not the trigger happy one here," Yossarian exclaimed making his way to the front end of the truck. Aart looked disappointingly at Greg.
"What's that look for. If you had one of these would you really say you wouldn't do the same?" Greg protested to Aart, hands moving the flamethrower close to him.
"Doesn't matter, we basically got everyone's attention now. All we have to do now is getaway before we're caught." Yossarian told them, thumping his fist against the steel back of the trucks cab.
"I know, you can count on me. Been excited about a chase for a while now." Aeron cried back to them. "What the fuck is he doing!" Yossarian heard Aeron shout.
"What's the matter?" He asked through the metal wall.
"Alfie, he's jumping up and down like a goose in our direction. Shouldn't he be staying hidden in one of our crate stashes?" Aeron informed
"He should be. Might as well pick him up, see what he wants." Yossarian ordered, making his way to the truck's back, past a grumbling Greg and Aart, who was now playing with the flamethrower. "Careful with that," he told them.
The truck gradually stopped and a dark-skinned man in his early twenties ran towards the truck's back. He had a navy blue robe laced with silver lining, a white button-up underneath it and, similar to Yossarian covered in charms and jewelry. He possessed black dreadlocks that were tied back.
"What's wrong?" Yossarian asked, grabbing Alfie's hand.
"Something major went wrong, Yoss. I envisioned your lot being tailed." He informed them, standing between Yossarian and the two others.
"Tailed by what?" Aart asked hugging the flamethrower tightly.
"A witch's familiar, a bird if I'm not wrong." He informed them destressed. The three cursed in response, Yossarian looked at him with great concern.
"Okay, but we predicted something like this might happen, that's not enough to botch your own safety," Yossarian replied angsty.
"You lot were also intercepted by a Celeres," Alfie responded, his voice quivering. The others looked at him with disbelief.
"We're fucked!" Greg muttered.