Leonard and Magnum approached the table to take a closer look at the Clown and the people tied to poles behind him. Then, with the red button on his palm, The Clown burst into devilish laughter.
"Don't keep our audience waiting!" The Clown raised his hand and showed the brutes behind cages, screaming and shouting at the Clown to kill the soldiers and the adventurers.
"KILL!"
"KILL!"
"KILL!"
"KILL!"
"KILL!"
"See. our audience is pumped out. Tik Tok Black Knight and my dear murdering psychopath, TIK….TOK," The Clown grinned one last time before disappearing from their sight.
"What are we doing here, Leonard?" Magnum sounded exhausted. His tone and how he sighed surprised Leonard. It had been ten years since Magnum became The Black Knight but never in a day did Magnum sound exhausted mentally. Sure, he was beaten, stabbed, tortured, and almost killed several times, yet Magnum always got back several times stronger than before. However, at this moment, Magnum sounded exhausted mentally, as though he wasn't sure about being the Black Knight.
Draven really did a number on The Black Knight mentally. But, to be honest, Draven just told The Black Knight the truth, cold hard truth.
"Magnum, have I ever told you that your mother and dad would have been so proud of you? I am proud of you. I don't say forget the mistakes, I am saying, you have to learn from your mistakes. The kingdom is standing here because of you and the sacrifices you made. In a world full of gifted ones, we have made a legacy and proved you don't need superpowers to help people. Don't let that legacy die because of a killer's words and an unavoidable mistake," Leonard tried to bring out the Black Knight he nurtured.
"We all make mistakes. Don't let that be a reason to give up on people who need you, Magnum,"
Coupled with a long pondering and Leonard's words, Magnum finally broke the mental barricade Draven put on his head. As a result, Leonard saw the fire in Magnum's eyes he saw when the first time Magnum adorned the armor.
"Now shall we go stop the Clown?" Leonard asked as he pressed a dark sword-shaped button on the table. The table trembled slightly before slowly splitting open. A metal container radiating cold smoke emerged through the center of the table.
"Where can we find that killer?" Leonard asked Magnum,
"We can't. He will come there," Magnum was right. But, just like they saw the Clown's broadcast, Draven also saw everything. As they were speaking, Draven's warship, the blade, was on its way to the abandoned circus at the edge of the Kingdom of Veland where the final showdown was about to go down.
**************************************************
Back on the blade, Draven sharpened his sword. Except for Margoth and Sarah, there was no one on the ship. Luckily for Barnabas, Draven threw him off into a river instead of killing him.
"That Clown annoys me. I cannot wait to devour his soul," Margoth licked his lips, speaking in a thick demonic voice. He sounded eviler and colder than usual.
"The entire kingdom has seen the broadcast. If I am right, King Richard's army will be surrounding the circus as we speak," Sarah stated while slowly moving the stick up and down. Despite getting a few minutes of piloting lessons from Barnabas, she had gotten the hang of it. Just like Barnabas said, the ship was way easier than any other airship to pilot. The Laynes were kidding when they advertised the ship as the revolution in airship designs.
"We don't have to worry about them. The Clown would have already predicted this and done something to keep the army from storming the circus. He's betting on the Black Knight to save him if things went south,"
"Still, we need to be cautious, Draven. This is a trap,"
Draven didn't bother to reply to Margoth. Instead, he focused on sharpening the sword.
"And you," Margoth turned his head to Sarah,
"While we deal with the Clown, take the ship and destroy the Layne research facility. They have the design and blueprints to build more ships like ours. We cannot let that happen,"
"You want me to destroy the entire facility so they won't be able to build more ships?" Sarah asked, frowning.
"Yeah, that's what I said. Are you fucking deaf or something?"
"What about the people working there? Draven, are you on board with this? Can't you just go down there and steal the plans? Destroying the facility seems like overkill," Sarah asked Draven, who finally put the sword on his slides and walked towards the window to see the city beneath them.
"Tell everyone to get out and destroy the place. The Laynes have enough wealth to build a new one," Draven felt no remorse for issuing such an order to Sarah. As far as he was concerned, they should stop coming up with more intricate weapons of destruction which inevitably end up powering up the supervillains.
"I just learned Magnum Layne, the heir to the Layne family, is the Black Knight. Why the hell is he playing hero instead of living his life like the other rich men?"
"Loss of his family Sarah," Draven looked at the distant horizon and answered Sarah. Although Draven loathed The Black Knight's moral code of not killing the criminals, he respected the Black Knight. After all, The Black Knight was Draven's role model once.
"It will affect you in ways you can't imagine," Draven said to Sarah with a heavy heart. He could see the flashes of his family playing on a grass field in the glass before him. It was so vivid that Draven didn't dare to take his eyes off a second fearing that if he batted an eye, the images will disappear.
"We are getting closer to the circus," Sarah wanted to distract Draven from thinking about his family. She didn't want him to be sad anymore. The whole reason why she joined Draven was to pull him out of his misery and repay him somehow for what she did. Helping him was her way of redeeming herself.
Draven noticed hundreds of soldiers surrounding an abandoned rusty circus in the distance through the window. The Ferris wheel made for kids was still creaking and making ominous sounds as they got closer to the circus. At that moment, all the soldiers on the ground were scared shitless when they saw the blade approaching them.
The sky had slowly turned dark, setting up a blank slate for the stars to paint a picture, along with the three blue moons of Etheria.
Whooooosh!
By the time the blade touched the ground, almost half the soldiers had surrounded it.
"GENERAL BARTON!" one part of the soldiers quickly stepped aside to let General Barton walk towards the blade. A while later, the door slid open to reveal Draven in his black armor. Despite the soldiers and General Barton, Draven looked calm. He stepped out of the blade and bashed the door a couple of times, signaling Sarah to take off.
All the soldiers, including General Barton, didn't do anything to stop the blade. Except for some, the rest had no idea where he got an airship. The moment General Barton saw Draven, his eyes twitched, showing the anger boiling within him.
"You killed everyone in the asylum," General Barton coldly said as many soldiers who hadn't heard the news gasped in shock.
"Not everyone. Only those who deserved it,"
"If anyone deserved to be killed, it's you,"
"I hate this fucker. Let's kill him," Margoth growled inside Draven's mind.
"He is just a loyal lackey. Ignore him," Draven didn't even think about killing General Barton because he was simply not worth it. Still, Draven admired General Barton for not being a superhero like all the others and chose to serve as a soldier. Any other would have put on a costume and joined UFH to play superhero and get rich.
"If you may, I have a Clown to kill," the soldiers agitated and jumped back when Draven suddenly spread open his wings.
"The Black Knight will stop you,"
Draven heard these words from general Barton before he flew to the abandoned building at the center of the circus. The rusty old warehouse was a run-down, rusty old warehouse on the verge of collapsing. Yet, despite its look, the building was big enough to have a spacious hall and several contraptions set up by the carnival people several decades ago.
After the Clown murdered some people inside the building, the Veland people gradually stopped visiting the circus. Hence, a circus that flourished and entertained the kingdom once became a sad, depressing field crawling with criminals and the clown's men.
The torches inside flickered, dimly lighting the interior. Draven kicked open the door to step inside. After the door opened, Draven saw nothing but an empty hall with some torches hanging on the wall. There were no green liquids or hostages.
"I expected something different," Margoth said to Draven, looking at the empty, dimly lit hall. But Draven was cautious despite the empty hall. Something told Draven the place wasn't as it seemed to be.
He slowly stepped, and the moment he took a step inside, the door shut automatically. As soon as the door closed and darkness was about to envelop the entire hall, the hall suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree. The brutes behind the steel fence immediately drew Draven's attention.
"FIGHT!"
"FIGHT!"
"FIGHT!"
The brutes shouted as loud as they could and yanked the steep fence violently like caged animals. But after throwing a glance at the brutes, Draven turned his attention to the people tied to the pole around the hall behind a glass wall that stood between Draven and the hostages. Draven was about to step forward when the ground between the glass and the hostages split open, revealing the bubbling green acid. As a result, the hall had a green ambiance with ear-piercing shouts of the brutes.
"Welcome to the biggest showdown of the decade," an evil burst of laughter echoed through the halls, muffling the brutes' shouts. Draven looked up and saw the Clown handing on a long chain descending towards him but stopped the chain mid-air.
"Now, where is the Black Knight?" The Clown ignored Draven, looking around for the Black Knight.
And the Black Knight didn't keep them longer, but after a few moments, a round object fell to the ground through the ceiling and began to smoke.
From the smoke, a silhouette slowly walked out to the light.
"He knows how to make an entrance," The CLown gave the Black Knight a flying kiss as his eyes sparkled, looking at the Black Knight's new armor.