The Freaks of the Ring

Prologue

The full moon shone down onto a long-abandoned building, crumbling from age and too dangerous to use. Moisture on the ceiling dripped into puddles on the rocky cement, the soft plinks echoing through the night. Heavy footsteps accompanied the sound and a boy's sharp gasps for air followed.

"Blitz," he called, his voice gravelly from yelling. "Where are you, you ungrateful bastard?" The boy stopped running for a moment, kneeling on the ground and bending over as if he were going to retch at any given second. "Blitz, please," he whispered, his bright green eyes fixed on the floor.

Not long after, a quick bolt of lightning flashed, blinding the boy and leaving another standing in front of him. The lightning boy smiled widely, but immediately became sober when he saw his friend. "Alright, Doku, what happened?" He sat next to him, softly rubbing circles into his spine.

Doku sighed and sat back on his feet, running a hand through his spiky brown hair. "Got the intel, also got chased by a crap ton of dogs." The other boy began to laugh. "Oh, shut it, will you, Blitz?"

Blitz grinned. "Poor baby. Chased by a few measly puppies and you suddenly forget that you could have just poisoned them with the touch of a finger." His voice was mocking, his tone insulting.

Doku stared at him for a second before blinking slowly. "Baby? You do realize that I'm older than you, right?"

"Yeah, by like, two moons."

Doku narrowed his eyes and flashed venomous smile, showing his needle-thin fangs. "I would seriously consider biting you right now if it didn't require getting myself electrocuted."

Blitz grinned in response, holding up his hand with fingers spread apart. Small charges of electricity flickered between nails too bitten down and charred to recognize. "That would probably be the smart thing to do." Sparks flew from his hands, lighting the ends of his light blue hair and flickering behind golden eyes.

The poisonous boy smiled slightly at Blitz. He was his closest confident and Doku'd had a crush on him for a while now. But for now, he kept a straight face and kept his little secret to himself. He stood, brushed the dirt off his pants and straightened the creases in his faded black shirt. "Can we go back to HQ yet? This place is giving me the creeps." He fake shuddered for emphasis.

"Sorry to dash your hopes, Sir Chicken, but I still have to find the rest of my information before we head back."

Doku groaned and smacked his palm loudly against his forehead. "You were so busy goofing off that you forgot to collect it, didn't you, Sir Small-Attention-Span?"

"Why yes, yes I was," Blitz responded with a grin. "And really? Small Attention Span? That's the best you could come up with? Frankly, I expected more from you."

"Not my best work, I admit. Now can we get going? It's almost," Doku consulted his beaten up watch, "four in the morning and we need to collect that Intel. Thanks for fracking forgetting, ya bozo."

"So I'm a bozo now? Wow, I'm being called a plethora of names tonight!"

Doku stared at his friend for a moment before continuing to bicker with him. Another ten minutes passed before either boy remembered what they were supposed to be doing and actually went to do it.

They'd been at it for all of a minute before Blitz came crawling back. He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck with a dirty hand. "Hey, erm, you don't have your phone with you, do you?"

"You lost yours, didn't you." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yup."

Doku shook his head and pulled out his green, flip-style phone and popped it open before handing it off to Blitz.

He muttered a name and waited before a little hologram girl with purple hair popped up from the screen. "Hey Tia."

"Let me guess. You forgot to collect your intel and won't be back for a while."

Doku could be heard laughing in the background. Blitz glared back at him and sighed. "Yeah. We'll be back soon. Promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep." Tiny Tia said in the tinny voice that came with the holophones. "Stay safe boys. And Doku, good luck with him."

Doku laughed, poking his head over Blitz's shoulder. "Will do." With that, Tia disappeared. "Now give me back my phone and go collect your intel before I actually do inject five vipers worth of venom into your body."

Blitz merely rolled his eyes and handed it back without question. "Fine," he grumbled, dragging his feet to wherever he was going. Not that either boy actually knew what kind of information they were supposed to be gathering. They were just looking for anything that looked mildly interesting or unfamiliar and boy, was this building a cesspool of weird information. There were traces of nuclear waste everywhere, though nothing looked to be touched by a bomb, unlike the rest of the town. Everything was either leveled or about to fall over, hence why they were so curious about the one place that hadn't been destroyed. It was probably the nuclear levels that they were supposed to be examining, but it wasn't like they'd been given many instructions.

Doku sighed and glanced at their surroundings, wondering just how Blitz was going with actually looking for information. Then he heard the scream. He didn't think it could've been his friend's at first, though who else could it have been anyways? He ran towards the sound, hoping that he'd just seen a spider or something ridiculous like that. He didn't even see what Blitz was staring at, it was so dark in the building. It was a miracle neither of them tripped over anything. "What? What the hell are you staring at?" He was genuinely confused for once.

The lightning boy couldn't form words at the moment, so he made an attempt to light up the space instead. No more than a few pathetic flickers of light fell from his hands, but it must've been enough. Before them stood a creature similar to a dog, though taller than the two boys if they were stacked on top of each other and just as wide. It took up a big chunk of space, its massive tail brushing the wall. It was then that Doku realized that all the puddles in the place hadn't been rain; it was drool.

Doku tried his best to run, but Blitz wouldn't take a step. He was frozen in place by pure fear and fear alone. Doku groaned and took his friend by the arm and tried his best to drag him along. It probably didn't help the cause any that he was the smallest boy in the group, but it wasn't like anyone else was around to help. The dog was only standing in place and watching the two small figures run across the ground in panic. Just that fact made it seem like the giant animal was mocking them, as if it even knew that they'd never make it out alive.

It took a good amount of dragging, but at last Blitz snapped out of his trace. He shivered at Doku's freezing cold hand on his bare skin, but he was in no position to complain. "Just u-use your p-powers," he spluttered, wishing there was an easier way for them to get out."

"Poison can't help us now. Just teleport your way out, I swear I'll be okay."

"No way in Hell I'm leaving you alone with that...thing!" Now it was Blitz's turn to drag Doku along for the ride.

Doku glanced back at their pursuer, which was now slowly creeping along behind them, just one of its steps equal to ten of theirs. "Nice proposition, but save it for someone that actually matters." He quickly shoved Blitz into a crumbling corner out of harm's way, just as the creature pounced.