"Everyone inside the cabin, now!" Nine commanded us.

Eleven is the first one inside, and I follow right behind her. Her creations don't enter the cabin; instead, they charge right at the incoming monsters. The white stone the summons are composed of makes it easy to spot them in the sea of shadow creatures. But they are much smaller than their opponents and are being overwhelmed. The hound rushes back at Nine, who kicks the dog creature back, sending it skipping across the ground like a stone on a pond. This isn't working. Unless the creatures can only do that shadow trick once, we are in a stalemate that will eventually lead to our defeat. I'm not dying out here in the middle of nowhere.

I turn my back on the battle as something explodes outside. I turn around to see what just happened, but besides some dust and a crater a good distance away from Forty-four, there are no signs of what occurred. He starts leading the creatures away from the rest of us, and they chase after him like the mindless beasts they are. Did he cause the explosion? It doesn't matter; I have to worry about myself.

I start looking around the cabin for something to defend myself with. The kitchen has knives, but I doubt they're going to be too useful against immortal shadow monsters. There's a hunting rifle above the fireplace that I grab, but it isn't loaded. I need a weapon. Nine backs up, retreating into the cabin. She's holding her stomach, blood dripping through her fingers. She's snarling at the doorway where one of the humanoid shadows is coming through. A hulking thing, it has to duck to squeeze into the cabin. It has two regular-sized human arms on its left side, but its right arm is a bulging mass of muscle that ends in a wicked-looking blade. The torso is twisted; it looks like someone cranked the body clockwise six times. It doesn't have a head; the glassy black orbs and overstuffed maw are located in the middle of its abdomen. Weird digitigrade legs end in wide stumps, and its skin is the same charcoal color as the hound's.

Damnit. Every item I'm finding is useless against the shadows. The only thing that worked was the flash grenade, and even that didn't last long. Wait. Rushing over to the kitchen area, I start ripping the drawers open, looking for a flashlight. There! Inside one of the larger drawers is one of those floating LED lanterns you use in case of a blackout. I flick it on, but it sputters out immediately. I don't have time for this. Hitting the side of it gets it to light up again, so I shake it repeatedly until it fully blooms. It is bright, and once again, I'm reminded that one of the more underrated features of my helmets has been that they protect my eyes. I turn the light onto the center of the room, where Nine is narrowly avoiding the slashes and swipes from the blade arm of the creature. She's not a Traveller, so maybe she's a Bruiser. Wait. The cut in her hyperweave doesn't show any signs of the wound I saw. I definitely didn't imagine it, so maybe she healed it already? That's a potent healing factor if so.

The lantern has a couple of differently shaped lenses you can rotate through, so I switch it to a smaller cone. The light flashes across the room as I swing it over the monster, hoping my idea is right. Nine's snarling face is lit up as I drag it over them both. The monster, however, doesn't get lit up; it gets bisected through the chest. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Eleven's surprised face, and I change the selected lens to a much wider cone, watching as the creature's body starts to burn. It's a slow process, similar to burning a piece of paper, so I keep my hand steady until all that's left is the shadow mark on the floor of the cabin. Not finished yet. Switching the lens back to a more concentrated one, I put my second conjecture to the test. Dragging the beam over the mark starts to remove the mark from the wood. I was right. I wield my laser like an eraser, making sure to eradicate every last portion of the shadow. There's no telling whether they need their full shadow to regenerate, but I'm not taking the chance with my life.

"Nice job, kid. Your quick thinking might've saved our asses," Nine said.

So she does know I'm here. I had started wondering if I had become invisible at some point, and no one told me. Still, what a weird way to say thank you for saving my life. If it weren't for me, she and the old lady would be dead. They should both be grateful I chose to save their lives instead of letting them get ripped to shreds.

"Thanks, but what about Forty-four? Wasn't he stuck outside? If the shadow got past him, then he's dead, right?" I asked. God damn it, there goes a perfectly good power.

"He's fine. I don't even know if a hundred of them could kill him. Don't let his young looks confuse you; he's the heavy hitter of our little squad. There isn't much that can get past his killzone and even less that can survive being hit by his full power," Nine responded.

Interesting. I walk past Nine toward one of the front windows to try and see what she's referring to. Forty-four is surrounded by the nine other shadow monsters standing inside the crater, and Eleven's creations are gone. The size difference is a little funny: one small child holding a gymbag slowly being surrounded by a bunch of giant, demonic-looking humanoids that utterly dwarf him. Once they're close enough that I can't even see him, they start smashing their limbs against him, but I don't hear any cries for help. What can you do, kid?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I'm not sure what I expected would happen next, but it wasn't this. Forty-four shoots up into the air, blasting all of them backward. Despite the darkness of the night sky, I can see his childish face clear as day, and he looks disdainfully bored. His eyes aren't burning with passion, but hatefully cold. He's not floating; I notice he's slowly falling. But for a moment, he looks like a disappointed god looking down on a world that failed his expectations. Don't look at me like that.

His bag is slung over his shoulder, and his hands are in his pants pockets as he descends back to the ground. One of the monsters gets up faster than the others, a beast that looks like a cross between a gorilla and a horse. Spikes cover most of its body, and it gallops forward on all four limbs at him. Forty-four crouches down, pulling a hand out of his pocket, and picks up something off the ground. What did he grab? He holds the fist out, slowly opening it as a stream of sand falls from it. The waterfall of sand stops before it hits the ground, frozen in the air like a picture of an hourglass. The monster is almost back when the frozen stream disappears. It didn't fall, it's gone in the blink of an eye, like it was never there. The shadow stops charging as it slides across the ground in two separate pieces. Cut in half straight down from the head to the groin.

Very interesting. How did you do that? It has to be related to the sand, but how? The two halves fade away, leaving just the mark behind. The rest, not cowed by what just happened, rush at him. One has giant balled arms covered in spikes with a small, faceless head, a waif-like body, and clawed legs bent over and over on themselves. It moves by running on its arms and reaches him a second before its fellows, swinging one of its mace limbs at Forty-four's head. I won't miss it this time. As the arm passes by his face, it suddenly disappears, and the monster falls over, unable to stand without both arms. The next one jumps at him and stops in mid-air, unable to move, and then I finally get a real chance to see his power work. The frozen shadow blasts back at the cluster behind it like a rocket taking off. The impact pastes both the projectile and the targets, sending chunks of charcoal flesh everywhere. He's firing things at incredibly high speeds.

Already, the one he cleaved is rising out of the mark, with not a scratch on it. Not that Forty-four looks stressed at all. He has the same disinterested look on his face, with an undercurrent of disgust. All that he can do and all he's accomplished is being one of Technologica's lapdogs. How pathetic. I work for her because I don't have a choice, but you willingly obey her commands. The shadows don't all charge in, displaying a new level of intelligence that they haven't previously shown. Wait a second. Where's the hound? There were ten humanoids and one hound shadow. Nine couldn't have killed it, because she seemed surprised by my discovery. I don't see it outside. Forty-four isn't fighting it, so I leave the window to look around the cabin. Nine and Eleven aren't even looking at the kid's fight. Nine is tapping away on her phone, and Eleven is looking through her bag while on the couch.

"Eleven, report," Nine said suddenly, her face deadly serious.

"Whatever the creatures are, they are not Álvarez's," Eleven responded.

"Do not speak his name, Eleven," Nine warned, her teeth showing.

"These creatures do not match any known descriptions or similarities to those previously wielded by the Umbral Lord. There is still a chance that this is somehow related to him, but the odds are unlikely. There hasn't been a sighting of him in what, a hundred years?" Eleven said.

"Yes, but his death was never confirmed. We'll remain vigilant regardless. Continue with the report."

"They do not seem to be resistant to damage in any way. The explosions worked just fine on them, same with your physical attacks, and all that Forty-four is doing. The issue is that when killed, they seem to melt into these shadow marks on whatever surface they died on. They are extremely weak to light; the flash grenade completely annihilated them. They can still reform, but sustained light on their shadow mark has proven to be capable of permanently destroying them," Eleven reported tiredly.

"That isn't true. The mark may be gone, but there's a chance that they can come back from it," Nine said.

Unlikely. I keep quiet while the two women debrief. They've made it clear that my input isn't needed. Did Technologica tell them to ignore me? What the hell am I here for?

"Hey, since we're having a team meeting, mind if I ask a couple of questions?" I asked.

The look I get from Eleven is one of slight irritation, but the one I get from Nine makes me glad her power isn't to explode people's heads with her mind.

"What?" Nine barked at me.

"First, what am I doing here? I understand we're investigating what's up with this town, but what am I here for?" I asked.

"You are here for two reasons. Because you're disposable, and no other Numbers were available at the time. If you die, the mission goes on and nothing changes," Nine answered coldly.

Fucking bitch. Technologica sent me here as fodder? Relax; she might be lying. My ability is too valuable to waste on some suicide mission. So, what are the actual possible reasons why she would want me here? Nine's face gives nothing away, just completely blank. I don't know her well enough to recognize if she has tells when she lies or not. I'm just going to have to assume that she's lying, or I'll lose it. The only reason you'd want me here is if there's a power that Technologica wants. Or is it not about the power, but the user? That Umbral Lord, Álvarez, is the person Technologica was worried about. He's the reason she didn't even want to use satellites to observe the area. If he's as long-lived as Technologica, then the only way to kill him would be if he didn't have his power. And the only way to guarantee that is if I take it from him. I think I've figured out the answer to one of my questions, but now I have new ones. Who is he, and more importantly, who is he to Technologica?

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