Specter

Chapter 11 (Day 1): Preparing For Nightfall

We last read Chapter 10, in which Specter accurately implicates Imperator Barrows of the Imperator's Armory as the mastermind behind the recent dissenter attacks across the Rusted Citadel following her, T.J., and Bengal's rather deadly encounter with three vandals in the rear yard of the new and improved Beheaded Bengal Saloon. Though T.J. suggests that they alert King Ryker of their discovery—thus allowing them to quickly build an army and lay waste to Barrows and his plans from the get-go—Specter actually refuses, admitting that Ryker was right from the beginning when he commented about her being a particularly violent individual. She vows to better herself, and to that end, she opts to send Barrows and his forces a warning rather than kill them, stating that she needs a train car for that purpose.

While Specter proceeds to type up a to-do list for her and T.J.'s next move on her phone, T.J. wanders off and accumulates an absurdly high amount of tickets from the Beheaded Bengal Saloon's Skee-Ball game, which he eventually trades in for a massive plush toy of Bengal himself, much to Specter's bewilderment. Nonetheless, she allows him to keep it, and she and he eventually depart the Beheaded Bengal Saloon for the time being to return to the Obsidian Sanctum and prepare for the next phase of their investigation.

This time, Specter gives King Ryker an update on her and T.J.'s search, before the two of them venture out in her silver convertible to intercept their target of interest.....

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-Obsidian Sanctum West Garage, Obsidian Sanctum, Rusted Citadel, Asia-

Just outside the door leading to the Obsidian Sanctum's newly-built West Garage—which King Ryker had commissioned the construction of shortly following the Iron Kingpin's demise—Specter was in the middle of giving King Ryker a status update on how her investigation was going so far. The good king listened intently to every word that the spectral superheroine had to say, never interrupting her once and only speaking up whenever there was a decently long break within Specter's wording.

For Specter, the feeling of someone listening to her and paying attention to everything she had to say was something that she hadn't felt in a very long time. Between her turbulent history regarding her distant family back in San Diego, California, her time as a Crimson Skull subordinate to Dr. Duncan Drevis, and her struggles against the Iron Kingpin's tyranny, it felt good to finally have someone pay her mind and take her wants and needs into consideration.

And for Ryker, he completely trusted Specter and her methods.....outside of her occasional bouts of violence, after all. However, after the Citadel's time suffering under the Iron Kingpin, the last thing Ryker wanted to do was cause a panic. It was part of the reason why he commissioned Specter—someone with invisibility and intangibility powers—to head the search, as opposed to someone like Ollie or Sylvester. Specter could cloak herself and make herself unseen at will to everyone, though she had yet to demonstrate it completely up until this point.

"And that's basically how our first day went, Your Majesty," Specter concluded formally. "I took the sharpshooter T.J. as my sidekick, and we visited the first of the three targeted locations: the Beheaded Bengal Saloon. Briefly teamed up with the new mascot, saw three vandals in the rear yard, got into a scuffle, all three ended up dead."

".....You didn't kill any of them yourself, did you?"

"No," the spectral superherojne fibbed, choosing to keep her murder of the first vandal a secret from her king. "We also got an important name from them: 'Barrows'."

"'Barrows'.....?" Ryker wondered out loud. "No.....you don't mean....."

"Yes. Imperator Barrows, of the Imperator's Armory," Specter confirmed. "One of the vandals pointed me in their direction before he died."