Chapter 1: Bad Ass in Black

Terror is a word that is often applied to many things. Terrifying monsters in science-fiction films. Terrifying exams in school. But today, Tabitha knew what terror really was.

She had heard stories about Knights: people who could use their mind to do anything. She had heard stories about how they had embarked on a campaign of genocide a long time in the past. She concluded that if they were real, they would be truely terrifying.

And right now, there was one roaming the hallways of her school, currently on a killing spree. And she had never been more terrified in her life.

She never wanted nor deserved anything like this. She was just your average teenager, a racoon about 5-feet, 4-inches tall weighing 135 pounds. She enjoyed computers and role-playing games. What could be more normal? Why was this happening to her?

Tabitha had managed to find a hiding place with a few other classmates, and they were currently moving from place to place, attempting to escape this nightmare. They had only seen the Knight once, and then she heard screams of terror and death ever now and then, signaling that they hadn't left yet. The police had arrived, but they hadn't done any good. She knew this because there were dead officers everywhere. Most of them had holes burned in their chests, while the rest of them had been decapitated. Many of them were missing limbs, and their weapons had been sliced in half as well. If the Knight found them, they would be dead in no time at all.

But the front doors were right there, only 30 or 40 feet away. A quick sprint and they would be home free. Glancing out into the hall just briefly, they saw no sign of the Knight, and they ran for it. The girl in front was on the track team, and she ran much faster than the nerds. When she was about ten feet from the door, however a dark shape seemingly flew from out of the shadows. A flash of light, and the girl was sliced in half at the waist. Another flash, and down the centerline of her body. Another flash, and another, and another, until she had been reduced to many, many separate pieces. The remaining teens screamed, Tabitha the loudest. The Knight simply looked at them, a gleem of sadistic glee in his eyes, and within a moment, he was upon them.

They tried to run away, but turned too quickly and slipped. Two more of Tabitha's classmates met grisley fates. She clawed at the floor, and managed to get away for a few moments, up until she ran into a pair of legs. Fearing it was the Knight, she tried to get away yet again, but when she looked up, she saw a different person. The Knight was wearing a black jump-suit looking outfit, and a black cloak that made him look absolutely dark and evil. This new stranger was wearing an actual outfit, black pants, boots, a mesh shirt, gloves, duster, and sunglasses. Tabitha rememberd seeing a movie once where the heroes dressed something like that, but this wasn't a movie. It was real. She looked back at the Knight to see where he was, only to find that he was frozen, eyes transfixed on the newcomer. She saw now was the flashes of light were: the weapon he wielded looked like a sword, but the blade was made of light instead of metal. He looked worried.

Tabitha looked back to the newcomer, whom she now identified as a red fox. He looked about average height and weight and his hair bleached. Withdrawing something from his coat, she jumped back a bit when a beam of light erupted from a hilt-like object, clearly the same type of weapon the Knight had. She also glimpsed a tattoo on the fox's forearm, and heard the Knight mutter "Shit..."

In an instant, the stranger bolted for the Knight with supernatural speed, and an instant after that, the Knight's severed head tumbled to the ground, followed by his lifeless body. The stranger deactivated his weapon, and picked up the dead Knight's before turning to Tabitha. She feared for her life.

"You ok?"

The question stunned her, and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Something caught her eye, and she turned towards it. Two of the original seven had lived. She turned back to the stranger. "Y-yes..." "Good." With that, he turned and walked away as if nothing had happened.

Chapter 2: Sleeping Dragons

Outside the school was utter chaos. Closest to the front were law enforcement officers, and several yards behind them were fluttered school officials and distraught parents. They had tried several rescue attempts, and every time, the officers had been cut down mercilessly. Only one had had managed to escape, and she had died from her wounds only moments later. Everyone was at a complete loss for what to do.

And then, the doors to the school opened.

Since no students exited, it had to be the Knight. He was just too relaxed to be anyone else.

"Freeze!"

He did so, allowing everyone to throw their hateful gazes and burning insults at him. And then, some of the surviving students ran out of the door after him, dashing for their parents. The officers were stunned by this turn of events, and the Knight used their momentary confusing to sprint away from them. They ordered him to stop, and they fired when he did not. Seeing him run towards a high brick wall, at least 20 feet, they gave chase, knowing that they had him cornered. All he was able to do was give a short verticle leap of five feet.

He kicked against the wall, properlling himself another eight feet.

He kicked a second time, sending himself the remaining seven feet.

Grasping the edge of the wall, he altered his course, flinging himself over the wall.

Officers fired again, but missed horribly. They began to run around the wall, hoping to catch him before he got too far. It was a futile effort. It took them almost two minutes to get to the other side of the way, since they had to move back out and then around it. They charged into the woods, deparately trying to catch up with him.

As they sprinted past, the first few feet, the Knight dropped from the trees behind them, landing soundlessly. It was relatively easy for him to slink away as they continued their search for him. Running quietly away from both them and the school, he dashed towards a different section of the forest. Confident that no one had followed him, he promtply pulled out a cell phone and placed a call.

"Gregoroff? It's your knight in shinning armor. I've dispatched your annoying fan. Yes, you're daughter survived unhurt. I suspect the police are keeping an eye on her until a parent arrives. Yes, yes, I know. You know where to send the money. Yes, I'm certain that no one will trace the transaction. Of course. No, it was a pleasure doing business with you. Call me sometime." He hung up.

Dispatch a Rogue and make money in the process. I love this job, he thought to himself. He dashed into the forest again, this time, with direction. Within minutes, he had arrived at his destination, a space craft he had left hidden by the foliage, a fighter to be exact. Hopping inside, he allowed power to return to it, each of the systems reactivating almost instantaneously. First, he checked the progress of his pay check. It been sent to one location, and ten seconds after it was complete, it had been bounced to another bank. Ten seconds after that, it bounced again, and the process repeated. In its current stage, it had just arrived at the fifteenth bank, and it bounced one final time. The Knight smiled as the numbers representing his funds leapt up another forty-five thousand credits. By the standards of this world, it was not much, but upon conversion to Keizahnese currency...

"Account credited 280,005.34 credits. Thank you," read the words on the screen. Enough to live like a king for at least a month...or just enough to help pay for his expensive upgrades. Doing the math in his head, his gain was not much to his creditors, but definetly worth something. It would keep them happy for a little while. Satisfied, he powered up his engine, and his craft lifted into the sky. Accelerating gently past stall speed, he soon pointed his nose skyward and smashed the throttle. The g-diffusors took off the large bite of the sudden burst of speed, shattering the sound barrier before long. He altered his angle and climbed more steeply, and within moments, he had left the planet's atmosphere. A job well done. The scathing remarks of his "patrons" had hurt him, but he was by now used to it. Ignoring it, he entered into faster-than-light travel and headed home.

Before long, the news of the two Knights spotted at the school and the strange story of the survivors was being braodcast as far as it could be. From there, relay stations sent it even further. Never was this a small town story, but rather, a gigantic report that everyone with the desire to hear it could, provided they had the proper equipment. And truth be told, this equipment was not always legal.

Chapter 3: Spark of Interest

Knights are recognized by many as malevolent forces in the universe, fit only to be destroyed. As such, any large incident involving a Knight is likely to be widely broadcasted. Sometimes, this is how Knights hear of the areas that Rogue Knights haunt. And sometimes of far worse things.

This brings to the front the Black Dolphins. A group of mercenaries under the leadership and guidence of Ariel Triton, heralded as Lylat's Greatest Thief. It was these mercenaries that freed Lylat from the oppressive grip of the maniacle Andross, with some assistence from Shade Monroe, who later became a Dolphin himself. Interestingly enough, two members of the Black Dolphins, namely, Shade Monroe and Miyamoto, Mariko, are Knights themselves, and any news regarding other Knights is quite important to them. Shade, who was taking a short break from daily life,was now presently hearing of the recent Knight-related school slayings from fellow Dolphins Beatrice "Boomer" Grey and Wolf O'Donnell.

"So, it was over in less than a second?" Shade asked, disbelieving.

"Well, that's what the girl said," Wolf replied in a rather monotone voice, as if he wasn't surprised. Wolf was almost always like that. "Said he lopped his head off with one slice and left."

"I've never heard of that happening," Shade remarked, still disbelieving.

"We should probably ask Mari about it," Boomer said, jumping in, "She's been a Knight longer than you have Shay, so it's quite possible that she'll be able to answer this a bit better." Nods of agreement went around, and then embarked on their quest to find Mariko.

Considering that she was in the kitchen enjoying a snack of strawberry ice cream and maple syrup, their quest was over rather quickly. They still couldn't comprehend her cravings all the time, but whatever made her happy. "Uh, Mariko, can we ask you something?" Shade piped up. The rabbit looked up from her meal and finished her bite.

"Of course," she stated, taking another bite.

"Uh, is it normal for combat between Knights to last short periods of time?" Shade asked again.

"Depends on their skill level and their abilities, really. How short were you thinking?"

"Uh, about two seconds..."

Mariko nearly choked on her ice cream. "W-what?!" Even with her already white fur, she looked pale, as though the blood had drained from her face. She also looked like she was about to faint, so the trio (or at least Shade and Boomer) helped her to a chair. Wolf seemed fairly indifferent and followed along.

"Alright, now tell me where you heard a story like that," Mariko said, flustered.

"On the news, just now," Wolf replied coolly. Again, Mariko looked like she would faint.

"What happened?" she was starting to sound worried. The other three exchanged glances, and when the majority ended on Boomer, she sighed and told Mariko what had happened.

"A school was attacked by a Rogue Knight, and some of the survivors claim that the Rogue was killed by another Knight, who supposedly removed his adversary's head with his first attack, and then took his saber and left."

This time, Mariko did faint, and was caught by Boomer and Shade. Again, Wolf seemed fairly indifferent. "What's the deal?" he asked as the Knight regained her composure.

"I fear this is something I haven't heard about for quite some time. Shade, how much do you know about the Knight War?" she asked.

"Only that it happened over a hundred years ago, really," was the reply.

Mariko took a deep breath. "Well, that war also saw the introduction of a class of Knight known as a Slayer. All they train to do is kill other Knights." Now, even Wolf was listening.

"That's all?' Boomer asked, "Just kill other Knights?"

"That's all," Mariko stated, "There's speculation as to whether or not they follow any sort of pattern, but so far, nothing has been proven, other than that they seem to kill more Rogues, but even that isn't for certain."

"So, you think that the Knight on the news was a, a Slayer?" Shade asked, slightly nervous now.

"It had to be a Slayer. I doubt that even an experienced Knight would have managed to finish it with only one slice unless they were a Slayer, or were at least very skilled." She was looking healthier for now. "Slayer's don't appear often, so you needn't be too worried, but as a Knight, you should always keep your guard up, Shade. If you ever encounter a Slayer, your best course of action is to run away, and pray to whatever powers you believe in that they don't catch you."

Outside, Shade looked like he would follow Mariko's advice. Inside, part of him was confident that he could handle a Slayer, while the rest of him called him an idiot for believing that if Mariko was fearful of them. Sure, she probably hadn't fought one before, and certainly not with her Gauntlet, but it was the principle of the thing. He elected that he would run unless that wasn't a clear solution. Even he had limits.

* * *

Boring. Junk. Junk. Trevor Lee could never find anything useful anymore. What's the point of having an information network if it's never informative? He was thoroughly put out, as his contacts were most uncooperative. He needed money, he needed excitement. Thinking back, it dawned on him that he also needed food. He could worry about that later. He still had a few people to pay off, and he was fearing that his time was running short. Finally, he came across something of interest. Something in regards to a gauntlet that was stolen out of some museum or something. Trevor smiled. Jobs like that always paid well. He was about to log off and follow leads on it, when a thought crossed his mind. He checked back at the report. Yep, it said "gauntlet." He traced the source of that report.

It said that a gauntlet was stolen, but it never gave a location. That was slightly odd. He traced the source of that report. It said that an ancient gauntlet had been stolen from a hidden location, although it did not specify where.

Now, Trevor's interest had been sparked.

It's too similar already, he thought to himself. He traced the source yet again. This one stated that the gauntlet had been removed from its hidden location. Now, he was worried. He traced the source again. This one said again, that the Gauntlet had been stolen. Another trace, this one saying that the Gauntlet had been stolen by an unknown Knight. "Shit..." Trevor hissed. One final trace:

Trevor cursed profusely. A Rogue Knight, one who he knew had a bad attitude, had the Gauntlet. Now, everyone was screwed. Everyone who hadn't been killed violently...

Trevor searched for relevant topics, and searched for nearly an hour. Finally...

There couldn't be all that many Knights matching that description. Trevor had leads, and he knew where the Gauntlet was, more or less. He then cursed the Warrior sect of Knights for having wasted their time keeping it hidden rather than actively trying to destroy it. Even throwing it into a volcano would have been better. At least no one would have ever found it.

Food could wait, and Trevor had enough to survive for about a month. This was far more important.

This would settle, once and for all, the fate of all Knights, the galaxy, and possibly the entire universe.

On the far horizon, a storm was approaching...