Author's Note:
If anyone is interested, I have finished reading The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is a beautiful read and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a great adventure story.
There are many differences compared to the movie trilogy, but they are differences that one can appreciate.
Furthermore, I prefer the relaxing atmosphere of the book, which touches my heart in a unique way.
XXX
Story Arc: Out-of-Town Visitors
Episode 2: Weekend with Surprises
Chapter 5: A Violent Morning
Plot: Today Warlock has quite a few errands he wants to complete. Unfortunately, one of them takes a strange, unexpected, and somewhat violent turn.
XXX
POV Narrator
The Black Friday of the ice criminals has finally come to an end.
Ice Cream Man was broken in the afternoon; he now finds himself locked in a police station cell, stuck in a slowly thawing mass.
Captain Cold and his accomplice Heat Wave, however, were intercepted late in the evening, caught red-handed while looting the museum. At this exact moment, they are under the harsh light of the interrogation room, cornered by detectives.
Saturday has just dawned over Nightfall City, but the suffocating heatwave shows no sign of letting go. Who knows what the next forty-eight hours will hold?
XXX
4:30 AM. A blade of livid light cuts through the darkness: it is the first, timid morning twilight.
In the heart of the Midtown district lies Witchcraft Heights. The name is rooted in history, when several families fled the prejudices of Salem to take refuge in Nightfall, a booming city that did not ask too many questions and desperately needed labor to expand local businesses.
Today, most of those old mansions—purposefully built in a bizarre, folklore style that screamed "haunted house" from every single wooden plank—have been razed to the ground by progress. Yet, those immigrants from Salem had backbone. Leaving a city famous for witch trials and building houses that looked like an invitation, if not an open challenge, required mad courage. The local library and the Nightfall City museum still preserve the records of the era: they tell of how the witch hunters, who arrived in town to scorch the earth, ended up instead being hanged and burned alive at the stake by the residents themselves.
In the present, the neighborhood has shed its skin. Now it is a mosaic of semi-detached houses, English lawns mowed to the millimeter, and streets so clean they look like the set of a classic TV sitcom.
Behind this facade of fake normalcy and apparent bourgeois success, however, hides a decidedly bizarre and chaotic neighborhood, with no exception whatsoever. Perhaps a curse weighs upon Witchcraft Heights: it seems like a place designed only for the insane, or where the sane are destined to lose their minds one way or another.
Three houses in particular stand out for their absurd personality, squeezed close to one another.
- On the left stretches a typical and quiet American residential property, which mirrors the style of the upscale neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Too bad that, parked right on the driveway, towers a huge and grotesque duck-shaped parade float.
- On the right rises a two-story villa, with its facade painted in an anonymous sand yellow. It would look like the most normal house in the world, were it not for the fact that the garden is dotted with a dozen pet kennels and that a silent patrol of cats constantly moves on the roof or around the perimeter. As if that were not enough, in the backyard lies the rusted carcass of an old World War II propeller plane. The elderly woman who lives there, who usually tells stories of having fought the Nazis alongside heroes in tights, suddenly stops seeming crazy when she stares at that war wreck that would deserve a place in a history museum.
- In the middle of these two excesses stands the House of Welt Blight, one of the last outposts of the old style still standing.
The dwelling stands out sharply from the surrounding pastel villas due to its dark and gloomy colors, dominated by shades of purple and black. It has a ghostly and dismal appearance, which immediately evokes the image of a haunted place; yet, while maintaining the typical layout of the neighborhood, it develops vertically for a good three floors, topped by a massive and angular attic.
At first glance, one would say it is abandoned, frozen in time for centuries. If you narrow your eyes, however, the details of the modern world emerge with force. In the back, the tool shed has been converted into a hyper-equipped handyman's workshop, which many would mistake for a totally illegal mechanic's shop. Further away, isolated by a sturdy metal fence, a pole topped by a web of antennas, external routers, and signal repeaters pierces the sky. Finally, on the roof of the haunted house, the bluish reflections of latest-generation solar panels catch the light.
It is an old, scary, and eerie house, but it is not at all on the verge of collapsing. On the contrary, it reveals an incredibly solid structure, robust and cared for down to the smallest detail.
XXX
Welt Blight's bedroom is located on the second floor of his house.
The room is plunged into pitch darkness, as thick and compact as the inside of a deep cave. The bulletproof glass windows are double-locked; outside, the old-fashioned, heavy steel shutters are completely lowered, and to seal it all off, the thick purple curtains are drawn from one end of the wall to the other. In short, that environment is an impregnable fortress: neither a ray of sunlight nor a sniper's high-penetration bullet could ever breach that perimeter.
If someone were to turn on the light, the darkness would reveal light blue walls and modern, essential furniture: a white wardrobe with clean lines, a matching desk, an ergonomic armchair in candid white leather, a large double bed, a nightstand topped by a reading lamp, and a bookshelf built into the wall.
On the desk, the metallic body of a smartphone, an iPad, and a latest-generation laptop shines, all devices modified with cutting-edge technology from Stark Industries.
The bookshelf is geometrically split in half. One quarter of the space is crammed with volumes of all kinds, from great classics of literature to the latest publishing releases. The other quarter houses a meticulous collection of 6-inch articulated action figures and complex Star Wars-themed Lego sets. On the opposite side of the bed, mounted on the wall, stands a display shelf housing seven impressive 20-inch statues. They depict seven different characters—five waifus, one femboy, and one bishōnen—from the homeowner's favorite franchise.
In the middle of the double bed, Welt is sleeping on his back. He is wearing only a pair of shorts that cover his knees. The rest of his body is bare, as at that moment he is in the fur and biological features of Black Warlock.
"Scooby-Dooby-Dooo-ah!" Warlock murmurs, his voice slurred by sleep as he emerges from consciousness.
With a strange, fluid jerk, he almost risks rolling off the mattress, but he does not fall. Instead, he freezes on all fours on the surface of the bed, arching his back and stretching with the supple grace of a cat or, judging by his thick, wild mane of loose hair, a lion cub.
"It was just a dream, too bad," Warlock grumbles, as he lifts a hind leg and begins to scratch his head, using his toenails with disarming naturalness. The fans who label him as a Furry on social media are definitely much more right than they think.
'I was organizing some kind of holiday horror movie marathon,' he continues to murmur to himself, cradled by the memory of that beautiful dream. 'A monster wanted to sabotage the event and I was about to intervene... but suddenly, Mystery Incorporated appeared! We teamed up to save the day.'
"Master, you play the hero when you are awake and you dream of playing the hero when you sleep. You definitely need a vacation," intervenes Sora, materializing with an ethereal flicker around Warlock's neck.
"Hi, Sora," he replies. With a sudden movement, he regains a standing position, stepping off the bed onto his two human legs.
"Good morning, Master. I see you slept well," the sentient Grimoire returns.
"Mage Hand," Warlock mutters, barely moving his fingers.
Instantly, the air ripples and condenses into a spectral, semi-transparent hand. The magical projection darts forward, covering the few meters that separate it from the desk, firmly grips the smartphone, and brings it back toward Warlock, leaving it floating suspended in mid-air before his eyes.
"What time is it? 4:35?" Warlock says, raising an eyebrow. He feels perfectly rested and full of energy, despite having closed his eyes for just over four hours. "This story about me needing only half the rest of an ordinary man... is it a blessing or a curse?" he asks with a touch of sharp sarcasm.
"We have two and a half hours before the shop opens, although we don't have to go there. What are we doing today?" Sora asks, curious to know the schedule for the day.
Warlock makes a quick gesture with his left hand. With a small flash of light, his journal materializes: a massive tome with thick, white pages, bound in a solid brown leather cover on which the letters BW are engraved in a stylized way.
That object is one of the most useful and employed artifacts in his arsenal: The Journal. To an untrained eye, it would look like an old diary of no value, but in reality, it is an indestructible object, impossible to lose, and capable of updating itself, keeping track in real time of every piece of information related to its owner.
In addition to serving as a personal magical agenda, the Journal contains extraordinary sections. Part of the text is a literal encyclopedia of the supernatural, while another serves as an arcane study manual, with spells ranging from beginner to expert level. Obviously, the Library of Alexandria possesses ten thousand times more information on the occult world, but it is not practical at all to consult it in the middle of a fight or when time is short. The journal is much more versatile for quick field research, even though, seven times out of ten, Sora already has a vague idea of the threat they are about to face.
Right now, however, Warlock is using it only for its reminder functions.
"Breakfast first. Then we'll drop by the Cauldron to practice some new tricks. After that, I have to go out and find Motoko's house; I need to fix her car. Finally, we're going to the Owl House: I absolutely must finish the last pages of my comic book, there are only six days left until the release of the next volume," Warlock lists. With another fluid gesture, he makes the journal vanish into thin air, since he has already memorized every commitment for today.
"Master, your dedication is admirable, but you should really find a way to relax," Sora comments, trying as always to convince him to slow down the pace.
"I relax in my own way," he retorts.
As he replies, his spectral Mage Hand precisely maneuvers the smartphone in mid-air, unlocking the screen and launching episode 12 of a tabletop game campaign entitled Navigavia, a swashbuckling adventure set on the fascinating ocean planet Typhon.
"Well, at least I don't have to worry about you dying of alcohol poisoning or some strange venereal disease," Sora comments, resigned but relieved to have a Master who, in his own way, is paradoxmatically much more level-headed and bold than her crazy previous owners.
XXX
In just half an hour, Warlock leaves the second floor to go down to the kitchen located on the ground floor. There, moving with methodical efficiency, he chugs an entire liter of warm milk straight from the carton, devours half a box of cereal, and consumes the first third of the Navigavia episode.
Once the last bite is finished, a single snap of his fingers is enough to activate a small household trick: the dirty dishes wash and dry themselves in the sink under the gush of water. Satisfied, Warlock turns around and leaves the kitchen heading toward the stairwell, while his smartphone continues to float in mid-air in front of him, supported by the faithful and evanescent Mage Hand.
Having reached the hallway, the homeowner raises his arm and firmly grips a wrought-iron candelabra mounted on the wall, identical to many others decorating the walls of the dwelling.
With a decisive downward movement, he uses it as an actual lever. Immediately, the dull, heavy click of a metallic gear hidden within the wall cavities is heard. The portion of the wall in front of Warlock rotates smoothly inward like a secret door, revealing the entrance to a rough stone staircase that plunges into the darkness of the basement.
"You really know how to choose a house, Master," Sora comments, amused and fascinated by that retro touch. "It was built exactly over the intersection of one of the city's three major Leylines, and it is jam-packed with secret passages and hidden basements."
"Whoever designed this place certainly didn't lack imagination," Warlock retorts with an ironic smirk.
Right after, he takes a step forward into the darkness and pulls the stone panel behind him, which closes with a sharp click, isolating them from the rest of the modern world.
XXX
The local hero and his sentient grimoire descend the ancient staircase to enter the secret basement of the Blight House, a place Warlock has dubbed the Cauldron.
This hideout has nothing to do with the Batcave overflowing with equipment, supercomputers, or colossal trophies, nor with the Fortress of Solitude, which takes the form of an actual alien ecosystem. It does not resemble Avengers Tower at all, nor even the orbital base of the Justice League. It is, much more simply, an immense underground space intersected by escape tunnels and old, forgotten corridors that connect to the city sewers. A discreet, spartan, but extraordinarily functional lair for a masked vigilante who is about to complete his first year of activity in a provincial city.
Visually, the Cauldron presents itself as a bizarre cross between a cutting-edge scientific laboratory, the hideout of a monster hunter, and the dwelling of a seventeenth-century witch. Many of the occult objects were already crammed down there, but Warlock has integrated his personal technology into it, dividing the space into three very distinct sectors:
- The Monster Hunter's Zone: This area is dominated by an immense containment circle drawn on the floor, in the center of which stands a training dummy marked by countless slashes. Against the stone wall rests a heavy dark oak wardrobe filled with ancient weapons, flanked by a metallic rack holding medieval blades with magical properties. A bit further away stands a shiny and authentic suit of plate armor from Old Britain, which legends attribute even to Lancelot. The perimeter is completed by heavy wooden chests reinforced with wrought iron.
- The Witch's Zone: Here towers a huge black cast-iron cauldron positioned over an old, unlit hearth. The long worktables house strange period machinery that blends classical alchemy with the early concepts of 17th-century chemistry and biology. A row of shelves overflows with old illustrated journals describing human anatomy and the healing properties of medicinal plants, followed by an endless collection of glass jars containing rare ingredients, luminescent powders, and strange anatomical parts preserved in alcohol.
- Warlock's Zone: This is the most modern and technological sector of the hideout. It is furnished with industrial furniture and shiny scientific equipment: a stainless steel operating table, a complete set of sterile surgical instruments, and a heavily modified auxiliary power generator stand out. A large digital map of Nightfall City covers an entire wall, flanked by a reinforced refrigerator to safely store biological samples and unstable chemical compounds. On a large designer desk lies the blueprint of an ambitious vehicle, a sort of assault airship, while the latest addition is a LED-illuminated display case serving as a trophy cabinet. Inside it, Captain Cold's cryo-weapons, Heat Wave's thermal gun, and, above all, the legendary diamond necklace that belonged to Marie Antoinette stand out.
"You know, Master? This place is really nice and I've grown fond of it," Sora begins, floating lazily in the air. "But don't you think we should start expanding it? Maybe we could dig deeper and build other underground floors, one below the other."
"Maybe further down the line," Warlock answers abruptly. He stops in front of the reinforced display case, letting his gaze fall on the crystalline reflections of the diamond necklace. "To tell you the truth, I feel a bit guilty about this theft. Even though I highly doubt anyone out there will ever find out that I took it," the hero admits, betraying a small twinge of conscience.
"Master, you have done absolutely nothing wrong," Sora reassures him, wrapping herself affectionately around him to dispel his doubts. "You just seized an excellent opportunity, exploiting the potential of the Bag of Endless at the right moment. That necklace has immense value for us who are tied to the world of magic, while for ordinary people, for mundanes, it would just be an expensive trinket to show off."
XXX
In reality, Black Warlock does not possess an ordinary Bag of Holding. The correct term is Bag of Endless, a legendary and immensely superior artifact, endowed with unique capabilities that redefine the laws of preservation and matter.
The most formidable quality of this bag lies in its ability to infinitely duplicate an object selected by its possessor. Any item inserted inside it, provided it can physically pass through the bag's opening, can be designated for the reproduction process. Once the object is registered by the artifact, Warlock only needs to slip his hand into the pouch to pull out infinite identical copies, one after the other.
A single, ultra-rare healing potion can transform into an inexhaustible medical supply. A handful of gold coins can turn into a virtually limitless financial fund. An iron dagger of little value can be thrown and replaced indefinitely, becoming as expendable and common as dust. If it goes through the opening, the only limit is the imagination.
The rules governing the Bag of Endless are precise and efficient:
- Duplication Slots: The user can register up to 10 individual objects, or 10 sets of objects simultaneously, for the cloning effect.
- Phantom Space: These special items do not consume the physical interior space of the artifact. Everything that is not part of the duplicate list is stored normally inside the bag, utilizing its standard capacity just like in a regular magic pouch.
- Empathetic Interface: The artifact reads the owner's mental intent directly when he decides to add, replace, or remove an object from the list of ten slots.
- The Return of the Original: The moment Warlock decides to delete an object from the duplication list, the bag generates one last printed copy: this is actually the original object that had been kept as a "matrix." The latter must be physically removed from the opening before a new object can occupy the empty slot left behind.
This is why Sora is perfectly right: thanks to the Bag of Endless, Warlock only needed to insert Marie Antoinette's necklace inside the bag for just a single moment to create an exact copy to leave at the museum.
XXX
Warlock crosses his arms over his chest, letting the words of his sidekick resonate in the silence of the basement. He reflects for a few seconds, then a crooked smile curls his lips.
"If you put it that way, in the end it wasn't a real theft. I simply borrowed the necklace for a few seconds. I extracted a physically flawless copy of it thanks to the bag, and then I let the detectives recover that one. Sure, on a conceptual and magical level, the original stays here, but to the human eye, they are identical. The museum saved its main attraction and I obtained a precious artifact that might come in handy," Warlock concludes.
With a fluid movement, he snaps open the lock of the display case, reaches out, and pulls out Leonard Snart's famous and menacing cold gun. The steel of the weapon is cold to the touch, coated in a thin layer of perpetual frost that defies the night's mugginess.
"It's past five in the morning," the vigilante declares, testing the technological weight of the device. "Let's analyze the mechanical differences between this cryo-beam and the molecular structure of my ice spells, drawing from different arcane styles. Right after that, we will move toward the city."
With a decisive step, he positions himself at the edge of the training circle. He raises his arm, aligns the sight, and points the barrel straight at the chest of the wooden dummy.
"If nothing else, inside here we won't have to complain about the hellish heat outside," Sora comments, floating excitedly over his shoulder, curious to study the effects of the imminent collision between science and magic.
Warlock tightens his grip on the butt of the weapon and pulls the trigger all the way down.
From the muzzle of the gun, a sharp, piercing hiss explodes. A concentrated beam of pure bluish and white energy distorts the surrounding air, instantly dropping the room's temperature below freezing. The glowing trail bites through space, ready to strike the target with its lethal polar grip.
XXX
In the Broadview district, the most exclusive and wealthy enclave of Nightfall City, the still silence of 6:00 AM is abruptly murdered. A glass object slips, impacts against the concrete, and shatters into dozens of sharp shards.
In less than three net seconds, Motoko snaps her eyes open, shaking off sleep with the conditioned reflex of an elite predator. Under the pillow, her hand is already gripping the steel butt of a semiautomatic pistol. She gets out of bed with lightning-fast, millimetric, and totally silent movements, catching a smoke grenade from the nightstand on the fly.
The golden rule at her house is only one: never enter the bedroom. In Motoko's case, it is not mere melodrama, but rather a deadly warning to anyone who dares violate it.
The former spy slips out of the room, gluing her back to the hallway wall. She keeps the weapon pressed against her chest and the grenade ready for detonation.
'Kurutan is still at the hospital for the night shift. Ran should have just arrived at the weather studios for the live TV broadcast,' she reflects quickly on her two roommates.
Not having to worry about protecting civilians within the perimeter, Motoko focuses on the threat with geometric coldness. The most dangerous and attractive policewoman in Nightfall City knows for a fact that whoever broke into her house at that hour is not there to dispute a parking ticket.
After all, Motoko has behind her three years of service in the army, two years in ultra-high-risk Black Ops missions, and a full ten years spent among the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. In nearly two decades spent on the razor's edge, she has earned a three-kilometer-long list of enemies. The idea that someone might have tracked her down to settle scores is the exact reason why she sleeps every single night with a pistol within arm's reach. Unfortunately, this extreme lifestyle carries with it professional hazards that are hard to erase.
'The intruder is in the garage. Do they want to plant explosives or sabotage my car to stage a traffic accident?' she thinks, her eyes narrowed into two slits of ice.
She cracks the garage door open just enough to slide the smoke bomb inside...
POOF!
A dense barrier of gray smoke invades the room. An instant later, Motoko lunges inside, ready to do what she does best: neutralize the target.
She throws a counter-punch straight into the blind, aiming for the face.
PUNCH!
She connects a devastating and lightning-fast kick right to the stomach.
THWACK!
She pivots on the ball of her foot and executes a descending elbow strike, of unprecedented violence, on the intruder's nape.
SLAM!
Exploiting the weight of her enhanced cybernetic limbs, she slams the opponent against the concrete floor, pinning him under her boot. She grabs his arm behind his back, twisting it with a joint lock until it reaches a completely unnatural angle. All while the muzzle of the pistol is pressed hard against his head.
CRACK! A sinister sound of torn tissue and cartilage echoes through the garage. Something has definitely broken.
"Who do you work for? And how the hell did you find me?", Motoko growls, her voice steady, already prepared to apply her time-tested advanced interrogation methods.
As she utters those words, the smoke screen finally begins to clear. Beneath her, the target of the deadly blows unleashed by her artificial muscles reveals himself to be Warlock. It is a decidedly battered Warlock, covered in bruises and blood, wearing his signature work costume.
Motoko lifts the pistol slightly, realizing only in that second the identity of the man she has just brutalized.
"Warlock...? What are you doing in my garage?", asks the former spy, whose mind is with difficulty emerging from the automatic reflexes of the night just passed.
"Hgahdh... Cars... ahajhsg...", Warlock stammers with extreme difficulty. A rather understandable reaction, considering he has just lost most of his front teeth to a cybernetic punch thrown by an elite agent.
Motoko snaps her head toward the center of the garage and freezes. Her car is right there: completely repaired, perfect, as good as new. The bodywork has been polished to such an extent that one could see their reflection in it. Not far away, on the floor, lies a toolbox branded with the hero's stylized symbol.
And, as if that were not enough, to add insult to injury, on a nearby small table tower a pitcher of fresh lemonade with clinking ice cubes, a plate piled high with cookies, and a handwritten note:
«Thank you so much for the help last night, Purple Panther! Here is a bonus for your work. Drink down to the very last drop, it's hellish hot today! And good luck with your job as a super-cop!»
In a corner of the paper stands a chibi-style drawing of Black Warlock waving cheerfully.
'For the first time in years... I feel guilty for beating someone up,' Motoko thinks, slowly lowering her gaze to the boy beneath her.
Warlock spits a clot of dark blood onto the concrete, then clamps his jaws shut and opens them again. With every movement, with a bizarre crackle, a new row of candid and perfect teeth emerges from the gums, pushing away the fragments of the destroyed ones.
'Accelerated cellular regeneration,' Motoko observes mentally, cold and analytical. She had seen people in the past capable of regrowing entire limbs in a few seconds, but witnessing it live always left quite an impression.
"Testing, testing... A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z," Warlock recites out loud, testing his vocal cords and jaw to verify that his pronunciation has returned to being fluid.
'I just hope I didn't cause him a concussion or brain damage,' she finds herself thinking, well aware of the impact force of her steel punches and unaware of what the actual biological limits of Nightfall City's protector are.
"I can speak! Praise the Titan for that liter of milk I chugged this morning, it made the healing much faster and less exhausting," Warlock comments, flashing a bittersweet smile.
"Are... are you okay, Warlock?", Motoko asks, this time with a hint of sincere, albeit controlled, worry in her voice.
"If you could maybe loosen your grip on my arm and remove your boot from my spine, I would feel much better," he retorts with seraphic calmness, as if being beaten to a pulp and almost executed with a shot to the back of the neck were just standard business for his day.
Dazed for a millisecond by the surreal absurdity of that scene, Motoko opens her hand, lets go of her grip on the joint lock, and takes a step back, freeing her unexpected guest's back.
Warlock pulls himself up with difficulty, letting out a wince of pain as his muscles readjust.
"How many bones did I break?", the woman asks, absolutely certain she had landed the blows with military precision.
"Well... you pulverized about a third of my dental arch, dislocated my right shoulder, caused a second-degree fracture to my radius bone, and displaced a couple of ribs," Warlock lists with the detached, professional tone of an ER doctor.
"Stay still. I'll go get the medical kit, some bandages, and strong painkillers," she orders. She might not be a surgeon, but on the field, she knows how to stabilize trauma wounds.
"No need, just give me a minute," Warlock replies.
Under Motoko's stunned gaze, the boy begins to rotate the joint of his dislocated shoulder. The movement wrenches a grimace from him, but on the third attempt, a deep click is heard: the humerus snaps perfectly back into the cavity. Then he begins to flex his fractured arm; his muscles tremble from the effort and the suffering is evident on his face, but with every repetition, the movement becomes more fluid, natural, and friction-free. Finally, he feels his ribs with the tips of his fingers, inspecting his rib cage.
"There you go, all set. As good as new, just a bit of general soreness. You know what? Maybe Purple Panther doesn't do you justice. You should call yourself Power Panther, you have a strength that should absolutely not be underestimated," Warlock comments with disarming cheerfulness, as if he had already erased the assault from a moment ago.
"You are an idiot," Motoko states, staring at the local hero as he tidies up his rumpled clothes without addressing a single word of reproach to her.
"Yes, I am. We amply established that yesterday afternoon," he replies, not at all offended by the insult.
"No, you are a damn kind idiot," she specifies, coining a new category of insults on the spot.
"That one, I don't think, has been confirmed yet," Warlock retorts. Then, looking up, he stops to observe her better, focusing on the details of her figure.
The sexiest policewoman in town is wearing only a set of embroidered lace underwear and a completely transparent robe.
"Did I accidentally activate X-ray vision through objects by any chance?", Warlock asks, lightning-fast bringing a hand in front of his eyes to cover his view.
Motoko looks down at her own clothing, the kind of outfit that her roommates define in no uncertain terms as a "man-killer dress."
"No. I was sleeping until a minute ago, I heard a suspicious noise, and I sprang into action. I didn't have time to worry about my wardrobe," she replies, without showing the slightest trace of embarrassment or shame regarding her partial nudity.
"I'm sorry, it's my fault. Because of the motor oil on my hands, a glass of lemonade slipped from me. I was cleaning up the shards when you lunged in here like a SWAT assault team," Warlock explains from behind his fingers.
"I almost planted a bullet in your skull and you apologize? I break half a dozen of your bones and in return you overhaul my car, make me fresh lemonade, and buy me cookies? What exactly is your problem, Warlock?", Motoko asks, clenching her fists. For the first time in her life, she feels as if she is part of some sort of bizarre and toxic domestic routine. Maybe the job is exhausting her? Has she had to arrest too many husbands who brutalize their wives?
"Thanks for not pulling the trigger, anyway. I'm fairly sure I would have healed from that too, but it would have hurt like hell," Warlock admits, consistently continuing to keep his eyes closed to respect her privacy. "Actually, to be honest, I used a packet of instant lemonade mix, and the cookies are industrial, bought at the supermarket. I was much more focused on repairing the Panther-mobile than on playing the chef, but it felt right to leave you a little token to apologize for the trouble this morning," he adds, almost as if wanting to downplay his own absurd kindness.
Motoko stares at him for a long moment, sighing deeply. "Why the hell couldn't you be a dark and antisocial type like Batman?", she finally asks, absolutely certain that Commissioner Gordon, in Gotham City, doesn't have to deal with this kind of problem.
"Because I am stupid, not crazy. And above all, I didn't have any kind of childhood trauma, nor did I suffer abuses of any sort during my adolescence," Warlock answers with disarming naturalness, as if the explanation were the most obvious thing in the world.
Motoko crosses her arms, studying him with skepticism. "I don't believe at all that a truly sane person would wear a costume to go around playing the hero without being paid a single cent," the woman retorts, firmly convinced that a happy childhood is not enough to make the vigilante as balanced as he deludes himself into being.
"Crazy people try to conquer the city, the world, the galaxy, or the universe. They become obsessed with a specific theme and make the destruction of a single individual their sole life mission," Warlock explains, deciding to lay out a fraction of his own philosophy. "I, on the other hand, am just an idiot who studies and perfects his gifts for pure personal pleasure. I use them to feel good about myself in the small things of everyday life..."
The boy makes a quick snap with the fingers of his right hand. Instantly, with a crystalline crackle, the dozens of glass fragments scattered on the concrete lift into the air, fit perfectly into one another, and fuse, reassembling the original glass in a millisecond. Immediately after, the teeth lost due to the cybernetic punch, which were lying on the ground, float like small ivory bullets and settle at the bottom of the glass.
"...or I use them to save human lives or to lend a helping hand to the police against the real crazies in costumes," Warlock concludes.
"Have you had breakfast yet?", Motoko suddenly asks, cutting the conversation short, determined not to get entangled in a philosophical discussion at six in the morning.
"Roughly ninety minutes ago," Warlock answers with a carefree tone. "I downed a liter of milk and half a box of cereal. By the way, inside the package, there was a free Spider-Man chibi figurine."
"You just regenerated from multiple injuries," she points out, pragmatic and strong from her experience with enhanced subjects. "This means your organism had to consume a massive amount of internal reserves to instantly generate new healthy cells. In plain terms: your stomach is completely empty right now."
Warlock brings a hand to his abdomen, moving it in a circular motion as if to verify the actual state of his viscera. "Well... you are partially right, indeed. A good part of that milk went to redeposit itself directly into the calcium of my fractured bones."
"Do you like sunny-side up eggs, scrambled, or do you prefer an omelet?", Motoko asks. Behind that blunt tone hides her way—painfully learned from her two roommates—of offering a silent apology after having almost killed him.
"All three are excellent, really, but I wouldn't want to trouble you at all. I have a patrol to finish, quite a few places to visit, and I even have to investigate some flying bunnies," Warlock politely declines, reluctant to be a burden to the woman. With another quick snap of his fingers, the glass containing his old teeth flies docilely into his hand, while the remaining stains of dried black blood on the floor vanish into nothingness, leaving the garage immaculate.
Motoko does not flinch, but she raises the barrel of her semiautomatic pistol, which she is still holding firmly in her hand, by a few centimeters. "I will shoot you if you try to take even a single step toward the exit."
Warlock stares at her for a moment from behind the hand covering his eyes, weighing his options. "If you promise to go get properly dressed... then I will gladly stay and have breakfast with you," he finally capitulates, proving he is not stupid enough to take a real bullet just to refuse a free meal cooked by a super sexy policewoman.
"Good. Then follow me," Motoko states.
Brooking no argument, the former spy reaches out, firmly grips the masked hero's hand with her steel-like clutch, and decisively drags him out of the garage, guiding him along the hallway that leads straight toward the kitchen.
XXX
Five minutes later.
Motoko makes her return to the kitchen. She has replaced the transparent robe with a black short-sleeved t-shirt, a pair of tight jeans, and dark shoes of the same color; yet, even in the total simplicity of that tactical and casual look, she continues to emanate a magnetic and lethal beauty.
Warlock is comfortably seated at the kitchen table. The glass that previously contained his teeth is now completely empty, while in a corner of the table rests his Journal, topped by a small and perfect crystal ball, large enough to be held in the palm of a single hand.
"Did you really... drink a glass with your own teeth inside?", Motoko asks, her eyebrows contracted in a grimace of genuine disgust. And that is saying something, considering that in her previous career she had even seen mass graves in ruthless war zones.
"Simple recycling of resources," Warlock answers with absolute naturalness, as if he were offering the most logical scientific explanation on the planet.
Motoko shakes her head and makes to open the refrigerator to pull out the ingredients, but Warlock decides to put on a small and spectacular magic trick.
With an imperceptible movement of his fingers, all the kitchen cabinets burst open in unison with a rustle. An instant later, everything needed for a breakfast for two rises into mid-air, floating in a perfectly coordinated dance. Plates and cutlery land on the table with a soft clinking sound; the pan positions itself on the turned-on stove and a spatula flies straight into Motoko's open hand, while the eggs and bacon come out of the fridge to align in perfect geometric order on the countertop. To conclude the magical choreography, all the cabinet doors snap shut at the same time with a single, sharp click.
"For you, household chores are solved with a snap of the fingers and a clap of the hands. I must admit it's damn convenient," Motoko comments, staring at the spatula she is holding in her hand and wishing, even if just for a second, that she could do the same.
"The Wizards in Harry Potter use magic to make their lives simpler and more comfortable, I don't see why I shouldn't do it too," Warlock replies. After all, he has no problem resorting to his tricks whenever needed, especially when he is within the walls of his house or away from prying eyes.
"Some heroes have extremely strict personal rules regarding this," Motoko points out, pouring a drizzle of oil into the pan. "They impose upon themselves never to use their powers for personal interests or for futile purposes. I've met quite a few people in tights or tight suits with codes of conduct that are inflexible to say the least."
"They are just poor, awkward, moralistic losers," Warlock states, expressing his opinion on the matter without filters. "I perfectly understand the ban on using your gifts to rob a bank, to carry out a petty revenge, or maybe to cheat at school or in a legitimate competition. But self-limiting in everyday life, just to force oneself to stay at the exact same level as everyone else, is simply ridiculous."
While Motoko begins to crack the eggs to prepare the omelet, the hero's voice continues to echo in the room: "It would be as if an Olympic athlete decided to compete using only one arm because he is too much better than his opponents, or like seeing Tony Stark doing a half-hearted job just because he is too intelligent compared to the average. It's absurd not to exploit one's abilities to the fullest."
The former spy throws the strips of bacon into the pan, which begins to sizzle and spread an inviting aroma.
"We are in America, the homeland of unbridled capitalism, of shortcuts, of the dogma that dictates using every single trick at your disposal to get to the top, exploiting whoever is underneath you for your own purposes," Warlock concludes, inserting a polished critique of hyper-capitalism as a perfect pretext to justify his own lifestyle. "If I don't use my powers to my advantage here, then where the hell am I supposed to use them?"
"And what exactly would your purposes be?", Motoko asks, turning the bacon with the spatula.
"To be happy, to have fun, and to perfect myself. Those are my only three purposes," Warlock answers, showing a disarming and clear honesty about what he truly wants from life.
"You are a rather simple individual," she comments, realizing that to size him up, it wouldn't take sleepless nights, folders of documents, or a team of FBI profilers.
"Thank you, Purple Panther. You know, people have the bizarre fixation of believing that complexity is synonymous with genius. And they do the same with cynicism," Warlock reflects aloud, considering his own simplicity and his touch of childishness as authentic qualities. "Hollywood has created a literal cult around cynical, dark, and violent heroes. I admit they have their unquestionable charm on the big screen, but seriously... who would want to become a man or a woman in real life who is distrustful of everyone, capable of seeing only the rot in everything? At that point, you might as well shoot yourself in the head and stop suffering."
Motoko listens to him in silence. She lifts the pan from the heat and uses the spatula to equally divide the steaming eggs and bacon onto the plates. "You know, when you talk like this, I can never tell if you are a total naive fool or some kind of misunderstood genius."
"To tell you the truth, I have never eaten bacon in my life," Warlock confesses, promptly lifting his plate toward her to make her job easier.
Having put the pan away, Motoko finally sits at the table across from him. Certainly, this was not the dawn she had imagined when she had awoken with a start.
The local hero extends a finger and touches the small crystal ball. Instantly, the glass surface lights up, beginning to project the floating images of the local television into mid-air.
"Is your crystal ball connected to the TV too?", Motoko asks, slightly surprised by the application of that mystical gadget.
"It's connected to the internet too, for that matter," Warlock specifies. He makes a quick gesture tracing an arc in the air, and the screen projects a viral YouTube video showing Spider-Man awkwardly crashing into a billboard because he ran out of web-fluid. With another fluid movement of his hand, the sphere switches to The Steambird channel, where the reporter Charlotte Gagnepetit has just published some hot new material.
"Our work from last night is going to make waves," Warlock comments, pointing to the video frame in which a furious Captain Cold, handcuffed, screams and solemnly promises revenge against them.
"Would you mind turning that thing off? Or, at least, tuning it to channel 7 of the local TV," Motoko asks, preferring to avoid the details of the attempted museum theft before having drunk her coffee.
In the blink of an eye, the crystal ball changes frequency, showing the weather forecast broadcast. On the screen appears a young woman whom Motoko knows all too well, intent on announcing bright sunshine and scorching temperatures for the entire weekend.
"Maybe it's an inappropriate question... but is the weather girl your girlfriend by any chance?", Warlock asks with an absolutely candid and innocent tone of voice.
"What makes you think that?", Motoko retorts, instantly assuming the icy and detached inflection of a seasoned spy conducting a cross-examination.
"Well, as soon as she appeared on the screen, you had a decidedly softer expression. Plus, around the house there are several photos depicting you together with her and another woman. You seem very close...", Warlock leaves it hanging, suddenly proving to be much more attentive to details and aware of his surroundings than he lets on.
'Now I understand how Captain Cold managed to underestimate him so flagrantly,' Motoko reflects to herself, studying the boy in front of her. 'At first glance, he just seems like an ingenuous kid living in his own little fantasy world. But he is infinitely more capable, attentive, and intelligent than anyone out there suspects.' She forces herself to remember that, beneath that boyish and kind facade, there is the exact same individual who for six months has been single-handedly protecting the streets of Nightfall City, doing an impeccable job, albeit strictly in his own way.
"The weather girl is named Ran and she is one of my two roommates," Motoko finally clarifies, preferring the certainty of a deep friendship over a romance destined to fall to pieces. Her love life, after all, had never had a happy ending since she started making a career among firearms, espionage missions, and months spent undercover. "We are just close friends."
"I have no intention of prying and you are not obligated to answer me at all, but... are you a lesbian? If so, know that I don't have the slightest problem with homosexuality. In fact, I am a huge fan of the Yuri and Yaoi genres, even though I'm not entirely sure if this detail matters at all in this conversation," Warlock rambles on, slipping back into the role of the adorable idiot who spouts nonsense to himself. Then, almost snapping out of it, he shakes his head: "Sorry, I'm digressing. I just wanted to say that if the answer is yes, I can easily stop making jokes or flirting with you if it bothers you. And the same goes if the answer is no. I would never want to be annoying or inappropriate."
Having said this, Warlock looks down at his plate and begins to eat heartily.
'The things I have to go through... so much for the old jokes from colleagues about the alleged flings between Batman and Commissioner Gordon,' Motoko thinks, barely holding back an ironic smile as she gulps down a sip of the lemonade Warlock brought from the garage along with the cookies. 'When I retire, I will leave the new generation of spies an entire encyclopedia of absurd theories regarding the relations between a quirky superhero and a police officer.'
"I'm bisexual," she finally answers out loud, almost not believing the words coming out of her mouth. "And I can't believe I'm about to tell you something like this, but... you can keep joking and playing the idiot exactly as you always do. At this point, myself and half of the police department are amply used to your daily follies."
Motoko is fairly sure that anyone else, in a similar situation, would have begged Warlock to shut up. If it were an ordinary citizen of New York in front of Spider-Man, everyone would accept the offer to have the wall-crawler close his mouth. But Nightfall City is different. Having a quirky, young Gandalf in costume around is definitely better than not having him. Especially in a draining, cynical, and punishing job like law enforcement, seeing a golden-hearted buffoon like Warlock puts a smile on people's faces and does a great deal of good for the morale of the entire city.
"As you wish, Purple Panther! So, what do you want to talk about now?", Warlock asks, lifting his face from the plate with his usual, radiant smile.
"A fundamental detail for the future," Motoko concludes, looking him straight in the eyes. "The next time you decide to drop by here... see to it that you knock civilly at the front door. That way I avoid shooting you in the head or breaking some other bone of yours out of a conditioned reflex." She has no desire, one day or another, to have to explain to her roommates why there are splatters of black blood and brain matter on the walls of their garage.
"Are you telling me that you want me to come back and visit you?", Warlock asks, flashing a sly smile, as cheeky as the Cheshire Cat's. "You must really like my personality, or is it the irresistible charm of my fur?"
"If you try to enter without knocking again, I will plant a bullet right between your eyes," Motoko retorts. Her tone of voice is icy, absolutely serious; she is shamelessly bluffing to maintain control of the situation, but Warlock has no way of knowing it.
"Actually, I wanted to do that, but I didn't want to wake you up with the doorbell. Plus, moving in broad daylight, the neighbors would have seen me... and who knows what crazy theories they would have made up. Just look at what happens to Lois Lane: it only took a shred of gossip about her romance with Superman for her to be unable to even buy groceries without risking being kidnapped by some super-villain. Even though, to be honest, I am dead sure you would know how to handle yourself perfectly well on your own," Warlock admits, demonstrating sincere confidence in the woman's combat skills.
"You could simply call me beforehand," Motoko cuts him short, offering the most logical and obvious solution in the world.
"I don't have your phone number. And to tell you the truth, I don't even own a regular cell phone, only my trusty crystal ball," he answers with a shrug. He cares about maintaining a sharp distance between Black Warlock's identity and mundane technology: it would irremediably ruin his character.
Motoko raises an eyebrow, her gaze skeptical. "You don't have my number, yet you knew exactly where I live."
"Sergeant Wu confessed it to me a couple of months ago during a patrol," Warlock explains, revealing his source with total candor.
'I'll have to have a very long and pleasant chat with Wu at the station,' Motoko thinks immediately, her eyes gleaming with a cold and vengeful light.
By a pure and absurd cosmic coincidence, at that exact same instant, miles away, Sergeant Wu tosses and turns in his bed, suddenly tormented by terrible nightmares.
"Do you happen to have something I can use to get in touch with you?", the former spy asks, tightening her fingers around her mug. At this point, she might as well make that bizarre secret collaboration official and secure.
"Actually... we are spoiled for choice," Warlock exclaims. He pushes aside the plate, which has been empty for a while, and reaches out toward his magic pouch.
Drawing from the resources of the Bag of Endless, he extracts in sequence a second luminescent crystal globe, a finely carved brass hand mirror, and a pair of thick tomes bound in scarlet leather.
Motoko casts a glance at the three objects and twists her mouth. "I would greatly prefer something more scientific and decidedly less Dungeons & Dragons-oriented, if you don't mind."
"Uhm... I see. Recently, I streamed The Powerpuff Girls and I really liked the idea of a direct emergency hotline between the hero and the mayor. It is undoubtedly more discreet than the Bat-Signal, so I built this," Warlock explains.
He slips his arm back into the bag and pulls out a vintage rotary phone, devoid of cables, painted in an electric blue and glossy black, with a small stylized BW logo on the casing.
"I'm an operational cop, I spend my day on the street. I'm not a mayor waiting in an office, I can't carry this thing around, let alone mount it on my service car," Motoko retorts, dismissing that piece of modified vintage technology without appeal.
"Sundays in Nightfall City are never very busy, I get terribly bored. That's why I dedicate myself to my craft hobbies or watch animated series. Lately, I stumbled upon an old cartoon about three teenage spies... and let me tell you, the spy in the yellow suit is absolutely my favorite! Their boss designs some really interesting gadgets," Warlock shares. Meanwhile, he shoves his entire arm inside the Bag of Endless, disappearing almost up to his shoulder as he rummages through the infinite bottom of the artifact.
"I used to really like it as a teenager too. I preferred the spy in the green suit," Motoko admits with a rare half-smile, betraying the fact that she too had been a child raised on bread and television.
"Seriously? I would have bet on you being a fan of the spy in the blue suit. You look a lot like her: you are athletic, beautiful, and incredibly intelligent," Warlock states with absolute and disarmante sincerity.
'This is absolutely the first time I've received a compliment like this... being compared to a cartoon heroine for teenage girls,' she reflects, having to grant the hero a full point for originality and the total lack of malice.
With a sharp jerk, the arcane artificer pulls his arm out of the bag, showing Motoko the object he is clutching between his fingers: it looks like a completely normal women's makeup accessory.
"This is absolutely the most advanced gadget I have ever built so far, especially in terms of miniaturization and micro-enchantment," he declares proudly, sliding it across the table toward her.
Motoko grabs it and begins to examine it with a critical eye. It is a compact, circular, smooth-surfaced mirror, perfectly pocket-sized. The outer casing is a brilliant lavender color and a large stylized white W stands out on the lid.
'This time we've got it. It is a discreet, compact, and elegant object,' the policewoman evaluates, appreciating the clean aesthetics of the design.
She lifts the lid of the compact mirror and finds herself in front of an actual concentration of high technology. Instead of the classic reflective glass, the housing accommodates a high-definition digital screen, sharp and turned off. In the lower half, where the actual face powder should be, stretches a futuristic backlit keyboard, dotted with small colored buttons, tiny status LED lights, and a small biometric sensor for fingerprint reading.
"For the name, I was a bit undecided... I was thinking of W-Powder or Compowder," Warlock proposes, scratching his head.
Motoko looks up, struck by the complexity of the miniaturized circuit hiding beneath the lavender casing. "Warlock... how smart are you, exactly?", she asks, mentally estimating that this device could easily hold its own against the medium-to-high-level gadgets issued to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, only with a decidedly more personalized style.
"Hard to say. Intelligence is an abstract concept and complicated to measure," he answers, reflecting seriously. "I'm certainly not in the top 10 of the smartest people in the world, and I doubt I'm even in the top 100. But I have a good knack for inventing useful contraptions. The problem is that often my magical powers are more than enough to resolve situations on the field; at most, I limit myself to using one of my potions. I rarely use my Artificer skills."
"I almost forgot! Here is the instruction booklet," Warlock exclaims, remembering it at the last second. With a flick, he extracts from the bag a small notebook of ordinary paper, devoid of a cover, barely a dozen handwritten pages long.
"You definitely have too much free time," Motoko comments, taking the booklet and slipping it into her pocket to read it calmly later.
"More than most, but less than you think," he retorts with an enigmatic smile. After all, in the shoes of the civilian Welt Blight, he has a commercial business to run that absorbs a significant portion of his days.
Motoko plays with the Compowder between her fingers, overwhelmed by a sudden and nostalgic warmth. "You... would you be capable of building technological gadgets under commission?"
Warlock lets out a carefree laugh. "Do you seriously want to become Purple Panther, the first real masked superheroine of Nightfall City? Well, wouldn't it be a bit complicated to balance police work with a vigilante life? But if that's what you want, who am I to say no to you," he jokes, convinced it is a simple jest.
"I have no intention of putting on a feline-themed costume," Motoko specifies, tightening her grip on the small lavender mirror. "But I would like to have something more effective at my disposal than a regular service pistol and a retractable baton." She misses the adrenaline and the efficiency of her old spy tools.
"Selling custom gadgets to a police officer... that's a new one for me," Warlock comments. In an instant, his attitude shifts, giving way to the more serious and financial side of Welt, the seasoned shopkeeper. "I will have to carefully check my inventory of components, take a look at my project portfolio, and get a precise idea of production costs and the final retail price."
"Don't worry about the money. I obtained an extremely generous severance package from my previous job and I have more than substantial savings," she reassures him, dismissing the economic issue with a wave of her hand.
Warlock glances at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall: the hands now point to 6:45 AM. "It has gotten late. I'd say we will talk about business, prices, and technical specifications at our next meeting."
"Yes, it would be better if you vanished immediately," Motoko agrees, pricking up her ears. "One of my roommates, Kurutan, is about to return from her hospital shift and I don't have the slightest desire to explain to her why I agreed to strike a secret collaboration pact with Black Warlock."
"No problem. I'm leaving exactly the way I came in," the hero declares. With fluid and rapid movements, he stuffs everything that belongs to him into his Bag of Endless, clearing his side of the table.
Motoko tilts her head, suddenly intrigued by a flaw in the security system she believed to be impenetrable. "But where the hell did you enter from, exactly?"
"Through the cat flap of the dog door," Black Warlock declares, with the utmost possible seriousness. A moment later, he agilely drops onto all fours on the kitchen floor.
"The cat flap for dogs?! But it's tiny, how the hell do you think you can pass through it with that size?", she asks, certain that no normal person could ever squeeze into that opening.
"Simple: Polymorph," Black Warlock answers, pronouncing the formula of one of his lesser-known magic tricks.
The metamorphosis process lasts a fraction of a second. Under Motoko's wide-open eyes, the vigilante's anthropomorphic figure contracts, his clothes seem to fuse with his skin, and his bone structure fluidly remodels itself. In the blink of an eye, Warlock ceases to be a Furry and transforms into a beautiful, medium-sized black sheepdog with thick, glossy fur.
Without emitting a single bark, the quadruped trots cheerfully toward the kitchen exit, wagging his tail happily and heading straight for the garage cat flap.
Motoko stands staring at the spot where the dog has just disappeared, a corner of her mouth lifting on its own. "All right... from now on, all the jokes from colleagues about Sirius Black being his real father will never seem so ridiculous to me again," she comments out loud.
Then, looking down at the chair where the boy was sitting until a moment before, she notices a discreet amount of long black fur strands left on the cushion.
The former spy sighs deeply, bringing a hand to her forehead. "Perhaps, before letting him escape, I should have ordered him to clean the living room," she mutters to herself, as she turns to go retrieve the broom from the closet.
XXX
In the Witchcraft Heights neighborhood, around 6:55 AM, Welt Blight has just arrived at the bus stop shelter in his area, having returned to wearing his civilian clothes.
"I'll be a little bit late," Welt murmurs to himself, unlocking the screen of his Stark smartphone to send a heads-up message to Nia.
Suddenly, the phone begins to vibrate between his fingers. On the display, an incoming call lights up from a decidedly familiar number, accompanied by a custom icon of a red apple. Welt slides his finger across the screen and answers the call, already sensing perfectly well the reason for that morning contact.
"Good morning, Mr. Blight! Do you happen to be too busy today?", asks a youthful voice from the other end of the line, characterized by a thick and genuine southern accent.
"Applejack, let me guess: your old tractor has stopped working yet again, right?", Welt replies with a knowing smile, having already faced identical discussions countless times.
"Yep... the old beast is acting up again," Applejack admits on the other end of the phone, with a tone of voice that betrays a hint of sincere embarrassment for yet another request for help. "Could you drop by here at the farm and take a look at it on-site?"
"I'm on my way," Welt answers promptly.
He reverses his direction and walks away at a brisk pace from the bus station, heading back toward his house. He goes straight to the back of the garden, unlocking the door of the warehouse-workshop to retrieve his bicycle and the large cargo trailer he uses to transport his heaviest tools. While preparing to leave, Welt sends a quick message to Nia, alerting her that he has a last-minute unexpected issue to resolve and that he will arrive at the Owl House a bit late.
XXX
At that exact same instant, hundreds of miles away, in the chaotic heart of New York City, a certain freelance photographer is running at breakneck speed through the streets. He is seriously late for a crucial meeting with his grumpy boss, who told him beforehand that he wants to urgently discuss a matter of the utmost importance.
To be continued...
XXX
Author's Note:
Writing this chapter was a really interesting experience, even though the narrative became decidedly longer than expected!