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CLINT KINO

I continued pursuing the Night Dancers.

Wherever they went, I was a good hundred metres behind them. When they set up camp, I set my own nearby. When they offered me food, I hunted my own.

Every morning I'd ask for a rematch to which Essio always declined.

"Sorry, Kid. That one match is all you're getting."

They went into a town and took a job investigating a cabin in the mountains suspected to be a slavery hotspot.

I followed them to the cabin and decided that, even if it was true that this place was selling slaves, I didn't want to help the Night Dancers.

The only time I'd ever step in was if Essio was about to be killed. His death will be in my hands and in a fair duel at that.

Batta used his ability to get a grasp of the compound's layout. This must've been the ability that allowed them to travel through our rock formation's pond.

Batta spent about ten minutes staring into a pocket mirror. "Boss, the townsfolk are right. This place is a hub for slavery. The outlaws outnumber us five to one."

Essio scratched his chin. "If their suspicions were right, we promised to take out the cabin and rescue everyone. Besides, there's more in it for us."

"We have a solid chance if they're out in the open," Oyecomova said. "But not inside. Even if Batta teaches us the layouts, they're more familiar with this place than us ."

"We can start a fire," Batta suggested. "The slaves are locked deep underground to make sure they're screaming can't be heard. And there are only three guards down there. If we start a fire by the only door leading to them, the slaves and guards won't get mixed up. We can just open fire without risking collateral damage."

"But we have to start a fire from the inside," Dr Teeth pointed out, his voice echoing in the suit of armour. "Sneaking inside is too risky and I think they'll be too suspicious to buy any sob story we conjure up. Besides, there are only a few reflections that Batta can use as portals."

"Don't just say my ability out loud, you heap of junk. The kid is listening."

Dr Teeth shook his head in disbelief. "He's deaf you dimwit."

Oyecomova shot me a look. "They'll be wary of our sob stories, but I bet they'll be more sympathetic to a deaf kid. We can get Clint to infiltrate."

"They'll just throw him in with the other slaves."

"Not if we dress him up as the son of a young lord who got separated from his father's party. They'll expect a reward so they'll treat him kindly-as close to it anyway. At the very least, they won't throw him with the other slaves and will let him stay on the ground floor."

Batta flashed a pocket mirror. "And I'll give him one of these as an escape route just in case things go wrong."

Oyecomova and the other Night Dancers stared at Essio. "Boss, this is your call."

Essio stayed quiet for a while, thinking about it. "It could just work. Lord Adler gave us some of his house's garments, right?" He approached me, speaking slowly to make sure I understood. "Kid, play your part in this. As a reward, we'll give you a small cut of our loot, you'll be worshipped as a hero for the town, and since you keep pestering me about it, I'll duel you one more time."

I donned clothes that carried House Adler's sigil, cleaning myself to make my appearance more noble. Luckily, I knew enough about proper etiquette to pass as a nobleman's son.

I can't believe I'm covering myself in the symbol that ordered the death of Axel. All that matters is that it gets me closer to what I want.

When I approached the cabin, I was greeted by four men with their pistols drawn. They lowered their weapons once they noticed I was but a mere child.

I told them the details of the Night Dancers' made-up story all by writing. Five minutes in, they were wary. Ten minutes in, they were intrigued. Twenty minutes in, they bought my act.

Their leader brought me to a room with a basic bed and drawer. "This is the only spare room we have. Sleep here for tonight and we'll take you to town first thing tomorrow."

"Why not now? My father could be worried sick."

"It's getting late and we're tired from working as well."

"I see. Thank you. My father will see to it that you'll receive a handsome reward."

Batta's ability was called Bad Moon Rising. It allowed him to turn unobscured reflections into portals that could be used as windows to see through or doors to travel between. This must've been how they travelled through our pond.

Once I was alone, I took out a pocket mirror that Batta gave me. allowed.

"Did they suspect you?" Essio asked through the reflection.

I shook my head.

"Good. Stay there for now and stick to the plan. If you're in any danger, escape through the mirror. If you must, use your ability as well."

Once it was dark, I snuck towards the basement door that Batta mentioned. Along the way, I ran into one of the guards holding a barrel of alcohol.

"It's you. Why are you out?"

I pointed at my groin.

"I see. You gotta go when you gotta go. You have to use the outhouse."

"???"

"It's the-right, you're a noble. Listen, there's no privies inside here. We have to go outside and use the outhouse. It's at the back."

Before I could ask more convincing questions, the guard disappeared into the hall.

When I found the doorway, I opened the pocket mirror to signal Batta.

"Boss, the kid's ready."

Essio approached the mirror with a bottle of rum. He took a sip. "Good. Keep this up, Kid. You'll get to duel with me in no time." He called out to the others. "Alright, all of you. It's time."

The rest of the Night Dancers approached, each holding a bottle of rum.

"Do you want a sip, Kid?" Jay Kay teased.

I pointed the mirror toward the doorway. The next moment, rum began gushing out of the mirror, spreading everywhere along the door.

Once they were finished, I hopped into the mirror and found myself back with the Night Dancers.

Batta howled, throwing a lit match into the mirror before covering it up. "Yes! That's how you infiltrate a base. Every time we try to do it the quiet way, it always ends up exploding in our face."

Essio rubbed my hair. "Nice job, Clint."

I pushed his hand away.

"Here," Oyecomova tossed me my clothes. "Get changed. Fancy wear doesn't suit you."

When I went to change, the once-bloody and reeking clothes I wore had been cleaned. When I rejoined the band, I gave a thankful nod to Oyecomova.

We watched the cabin from a vantage point. After a few minutes when half the ground floor was on fire, the men inside rang the alarm which prompted everyone to flee from the building. The men drinking and gambling on the second floor jumped down.

"Where's the little lord?" one asked.

"He should've been out," another answered. "I ran into him earlier when he went to the outhouse."

"When was that?"

"Right before the fire."

With most of the men still sleepy and unprepared, in addition to being weaponless, the Night Dancers massacred them. I stayed by the sidelines and watched the outlaws drop without a struggle.

Essio stood over the leader.

"Did you start the fire?"

He gestured for me to come.

"You? The young lord?"

"He was never a young lord. But he was pretty convincing, eh?" Before the leader said another word, Essio shot him in the head and opened a mirror. "Okay, Batta. We're done here. Let it rip."

The fire began to die down as water began gushing from various places within the house.

Batta must've found a body of water and used mirrors from inside the house to put the fire out.

When we entered the basement, we found Batta inside with the three guards' bodies on the floor. He was tending to the slaves who were in the worst conditions.

"Can one of you take a mirror and go to my abilities maximum reach distance?" Batta asked. "These guys are in no condition to walk."

Essio nodded. "Oyecomova, Jay Kay, and Dr Teeth, stay here with Batta. Doc, tend to them and none of your experiments. Mikey and Clint, come with me."

Before we began making our way to town, we stopped just outside of the cabin where all the bodies were.

Essio handed a coin to Mikey. "Flip the coin just like last time."

Mikey S. nodded.

"Tsk. Why the hell did I order the two quietest people to come with me?" He sighed. "Alright, Clint. Let's get this over with."

I shook my head and pointed at the basement then towards town.

"You want to finish this up first?"

I nodded.

With all the investigations, clean-up, and interrogations, it took about five days to wrap up this whole ordeal. We deposited our rewards into the bank.

One of the kidnapped's family even rewarded us with a cursed fishing rod that allowed its user to freely control the line. The rod worked well with Batta's Bad Moon Rising as it allowed him to fish through reflections and reel anything while allowing him to stay at a safe distance.

Batta named the fishing rod Chase.

On the first night back on the road, Essio called me over. "A Free Man's promise is always seen through. Come on."

We got into position, waiting for Oyecmova to flip the coin.

"Go, Clint!" Batta cheered.

"Hey Boss, if Clint kills you, can he replace you as our boss?" Jay Kay asked.

"The Boss ain't losing," Dr Teeth echoed.

"Do you want to bet?"

"Yeah. Ten silver coins. Oyecomova, you in?"

"No."

"Mikey?"

Mikey S. held out five fingers.

"Five silvers it is. By the way, Batta, you still owe me."

I'll try something different from last time. I need to figure out how his ability works first.

When the coin hit the ground, I summoned my gun but instead of pulling the trigger, I tossed the pistol at Essio who dodged it by stepping to the side.

I drew my Big Sis' pistol and aimed it at Essio, who rolled away last second. While he was rolling, he somehow blasted the pistol out of my hand.

Essio stood up. "You're dead set on sticking with us?"

I nodded.

"Fine, we'll let you tag along. And since you walk the path of the Free Man's World, I'll reward you with a duel every time you accomplish something great." Essio grinned. "Try to kill me."

That was how my first mission with the Night Dancers went.

I spent seven years travelling with the Night Dancers. In that time, I duelled with and lost to Essio forty-five times.

They never treated me as a kid but instead as an equal.

About two weeks after staying with them, I woke up three hours late since the job the day before took its toll. It took me the entire day to track them down.

"Why'd you leave me?"

"We offered to go to the Adventurer's Guild and let you join our party as an official member but you declined," Essio explained. "Which means you didn't want to be a Night Dancer. We're still your enemy, right? If we helped you out, we'd be pitying you and we both know you don't want that. You want to stick with us but not join our party? Fine. We'll even share camp and food. But it's on you to keep up with your own two feet."

As much as I hated them for what they did to Axel, I couldn't help but see that the Night Dancers saw me the same way Axel and Big Sis did. They treated me with respect and never mocked my inability to hear nor speak.

Over the years, I slowly figured out each of their abilities.

Batta was obviously the first as he showcased the most during my first job with the party. He had Bad Moon Rising which allowed him to use unobscured reflections in his vicinity as portals. And he had Chase, his newly acquired cursed fishing rod whose lines he could control at will.

Jay Kay's ability could only work if he was in a room. Whenever he spoke out the trigger word, the room would change orientation and whatever wall, floor, or ceiling he pointed to would become the ground. The trigger word and the name of the ability were one and the same-Virtual Insanity.

Dr Teeth could detach his soul from his body and attach it to any life-like object nearby. If the object he was inhabiting was destroyed, his soul would attach itself to the closest object he could inhabit. He couldn't take damage when his soul had a host. When it didn't, his soul would appear as a thick cloud that could be damaged. This ability of his was called Puppet Boy.

The ability Mikey S. had took the longest to figure out. When activated, time is reversed for twelve seconds. Not a second more and not a second less. After activation, it had a cooldown of twenty-four seconds. To this day, I still didn't know its name.

Along the way, we came across a breeder who claimed that he owned a hawk that developed its own alchemy ability. Though it was rare for non-sentient life to develop jynx abilities, it was possible. The party had been in talks of buying a bird to join the crew. Essio bit the bullet and bought the expensive hawk named War Machine. We quickly figured out that the breeder spoke the truth. The hawk was able to form icicles on still surfaces and it picked up on the habit of carrying an icicle and dropping the pointy end on its target. Since the hawk couldn't name its ability, everyone drew straws to determine who would. Jay Kay won and named the ability Ice Ice Baby.

Oyecomova's ability was called Separate Ways. This allowed him to cut up his and others' body without causing any damage. It also worked in reverse and could reattach sliced limbs. With this ability, Oyecomova was immune to cutting damage.

Back during our early duels, I theorized that Essio's ability was gun-based just like mine and Axel's were. I was correct. Any bullet he fired had the ability to ricochet in mid-air. Essio referred to this as 'bouncing'. A bullet can only bounce once and when it did, it shot at the speed when it was first fired from the gun. Essio called it Fairytale.

After the Great Shuffle trapped us on the eastern side, we travelled along the isolated land above the Great Sand Sea. While camping just off the road, Essio's attention was taken by a pair of travellers who passed us.

They were an old muscular man with tattoos on both arms and a young blonde girl with glasses. He kept his eyes on them until they were out of view.

"What's wrong?" Dr Teeth asked.

"The girl caught my eye."

Batta licked his lips. "You finally got over your ex-wife?"

Essio sipped on rum and spat it through the fire towards Batta. "I swear, I'll murder you."

"Okay, okay. I'll stop," Batta chuckled. "It's just that I've never seen you admire someone so young. If she's anything like your ex, you should give her some money as a down payment."

Essio reached for his gun.

"No! Stop! I'll stop!" Batta guffawed. "I'm done. Promise. Fingers crossed."

Essio shrugged everything off. "Before we formed this party, I temporarily worked for House Barrett. You see, Lord Barrett is very protective over his eldest daughter and I found myself a job as her personal bodyguard."

"How come you were the only guard?" Jay Kay asked.

"Actually, three of us were hired. One tried to intimidate me so I broke his legs. The other one resigned the day after. I got about three months in before asking for a raise. If this job originally needed three guards, shouldn't my salary match that?"

"That's a pretty reasonable request."

"Lord Barrett declined so I resigned."

"What's this got to do with the..."

"The daughter's name was Riko. She was skinny, blonde, and wore spectacles."

Batta stared at where the duo disappeared to. "You think that was her?"

"She looks like an older Riko, but I doubt that it's actually her. Besides, a blonde-haired girl with glasses isn't exactly a rare description. Lord Barrett is overprotective and there's no way he would let her leave the castle."

"What if she ran away or was kidnapped?" Oyecomova suggested.

"Those two situations are also reasonable, especially the first one. If that girl is Riko then I bet Lord Barrett is yearning for his daughter."

Jay Kay rubbed his fingers together. "Big reward too, eh, Boss?"

"Don't tempt me. You know I represent greed better than whichever Royal Guard carries that title."

"Let's go after her then," Batta said. "We can snatch her up easily."

"Are you insane? No. If it's not her then we'll be wanted for kidnap. And what if her father did allow her to travel and that old man is her guard?"

Dr Teeth retorted, "While Moby Dick has Headrig's Pass in a chokehold and hundreds of people are claiming to have been teleported from Gilead? Impossible. And don't forget that ever since the soldier reserves were summoned to fight that obese whale, crime in the east has been at an all-time high."

Essio took back control of the conversation. "No matter what, the first thing we need to do is verify that she is the Riko Barrett I guarded and that her father has promised a reward to anyone who brings her back. If both of those check out, we already have a suspect."

A couple days later, we took a job of collecting the pelts of aggressive emberhide boars. Their pelts were extremely expensive as they emit warmth, making them a prized possession for northerners.

To duel with Essio, he tasked me with taking down twenty-five emberhides. I only managed to take down seventeen before the herd fled to the frozen canyons. War Machine killed fifteen of them so I almost lost to a damn bird.

All in all, we collected about ninety-eight pelts. The man we took the job from exchanged them with a chest of treasure worth roughly the same.

I lost another opportunity to duel.

While I was lost in my thoughts, Essio sat by my side. "You know, not everything goes your way all the time. You've had duels in the past and you'll have more in the future." He called out to his right-hand man. "Say, Oyecomova, you volunteered to go to Orisa to cash in our loot, correct?"

"Aye."

"Hmm. Clint, I'll give you a chance to make up for this one. Go with Oyecomova and steal a bag of coins that's worth the amount of pelts you missed out on. But you'll only have until Oyecomova returns. I'll reward you with a duel."

When Oyecomova and I arrived at Orisa, we split up to finish the tasks assigned to us. I waited for the perfect opportunity to snatch a purse.

About an hour in, an elf girl's bright green hair brought my attention to her. Beside her, a boy wearing a pointy hat flashed a pouch of coins and began counting them.

I was drawn to their presence and I took it as a sign that they were my targets. Little did I know that this choice would change the trajectory of the path I had been treading.

What's next on Rebellion?

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Thanks for reading this far and don't forget to comment and vote as it would help push this story out a lot.

What do you think of Clint's backstory, do you feel like it has properly developed him as a character?

What do you think about the village scenes?

What are your thoughts on Odetta and Axel Rose?

How do you feel about the Night Dancers and how they impacted Clint?

References:

Odetta Kino - Odetta (The Dark Tower), Kino (Kino's Journey)

Axel Rose - Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses lead vocalist)

The Night Dancers - Night Dancer (Imase song)

Diaye Essio - D.I.S.C.O. (Ottawan song)

Batta - Batta (J-rock band)

Dr Teeth - Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (American Muppet rock group)

Jay Kay - Jay Kay (British singer)

War Machine - War Machine (AC/DC song)

Mikey S. - Manjiro "Mikey" Sano (Tokyo Revengers character)

Tumbling Dice - Tumbling Dice (The Rolling Stones song)

Don't Damn Me - Don't Damn Me (Guns N' Roses song)

Fairytale - Fairytale (Alexander Ryback song)

Bad Moon Rising - Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival song)

Chase - Chase (Batta song)

Puppet Boy - Puppet Boy (DEVO song)

Virtual Insanity - Virtual Insanity (Jamiroquai song)

Ice Ice baby - Ice Ice Baby (Vanilla Ice song)

Author's Notes:

Clint teaming up with the main group was originally supposed to be very different. In this version, Roxy and Roxanne stayed at the farming village while Ilias and Jaime went ahead. They get their money stolen by the Night Dancers and they bump into Clint who has had the same thing happen to them. They team up and cross the desert together out of desperation. I changed this because it would've been smarter for Ilias and Jaime to go back to the village and ask for more money. Also, I thought it'd be more interesting if Clint was introduced to opposing Ilias and Jaime.

I always knew Clint was gonna have a disability and it was originally going to be blindness. But I noticed that there are too many blind badasses in fiction. And their blindness somehow enhances them. I went with deafness instead and wanted to make sure that the disability is an actual obstacle instead of a power-up in disguise (my favourite story of all time is A Silent Voice).

The reason why their group name is The Night Dancers is because at the time of writing this chapter, there was a trend in TikTok where people used AI to have fictional characters sing Night Dancer by Imase. (The DIO one is still on top)