The Illicitor's Code #1

003: Monsters in Toronto

As dawn broke, sharp, piercing, ear-splitting roars suddenly echoed from a distance, startling Dim-Dim out of his pleasant dream of rowing a boat and causing him to wake up, jerking in shock and tumbling off his bed.

While rubbing his head with a confused look, Dim-Dim heard the sound of the danger alarm echoing throughout the city. A warning that there are monsters in the city.

But—isn't that impossible?

No, only monsters can cause a venator appear in the city. This was a reason why Ms. Clark appeared in Toronto.

Panicked, Dim-Dim rushed to Damian's room across his and pushed the door open. "Ms. Cl—" he began, but the Venator was nowhere to be found.

Hurrying to the living room, Dim-Dim found his mother asleep on the sofa, wearing headphones. "There are monsters, Mama," he said after removing her headset. "Mama! Wake up!"

Outside the house, the sound of fleeing residents' footsteps could be heard, and Dim-Dim shook his mother's body even harder. "MAMA!"

When his mother finally woke up, she suddenly screamed and waved her hands towards Dim-Dim. Dim-Dim was confused and stunned by her reaction... until he finally glanced down and saw the sharp bird claws of his own nails piercing his mother's cardigan, causing a shrill scream from him.

"Kak! Kak! Kak!"

Backing away, Dim-Dim looked around, searching for a mirror in the living room, but the room was too dark. It was only when the living room door suddenly slammed open and the light from the corridor seeped in, that he could see his reflection on the television screen, and it wasn't him! It was a Copper's Hawk, with gray feathers and red eyes!

"Ma!" a man shouted from the living room doorway, startling Dim-Dim. It was his big, burly brother, whom he admired and missed so much, now charging towards him with a sickle.

Dim-Dim, in shock and panic, immediately attempted to fly backward, but found his wings too heavy to flap, and before he knew it, he had crashed into the curtains and plummeted to the floor.

'Change! Change!' he screamed in his mind, completely panicked.

In an instant, he transformed into a cat, then a squirrel.

His brother pushed aside the heavy curtains weighing Dim-Dim down, then aimed a sickle at him, and Dim-Dim screamed again in his mind.

'GET BACK TO MYSELF!'

When he finally reverted to his human form, his neck was just an inch away from Damian's sickle. Damian stopped his sickle just in time and stared wide-eyed at Dim-Dim, amazed and astounded.

But it was only a momentary pause, as he then grabbed Dim-Dim's pajamas collar and dragged the young boy towards the kitchen.

"Damian!" Dim-Dim shouted, his hands gripping Damian's hand, but his brother kept dragging him until they reached the basement door.

"Get in!" his brother yelled with a hoarse voice, and Dim-Dim opened the door and ran down the stairs into the basement, trembling.

His brother then disappeared from the kitchen and returned a few seconds later carrying their mother and bringing her into the basement. "There's no time left. Please hide in here until we kill that monster, Ma," Damian said. His lack of sleep red eyes glanced at Dim-Dim for a moment, and then the man whispered, "You have superpowers, Dim-Dim, so you're the one the monsters are after." And then he closed the door.

*****

"Honey, are you okay?" Dim-Dim's mother touched his cold, sweaty face, and the boy responded with a quick nod while his body trembling so hard. "Did you turn into an animal, my dear? Is that your super power?"

Even from inside the basement, they could still hear the monsters roaring, accompanied by the continuous sound of gunfire. For a moment, Dim-Dim worried about the animals he cared for behind the house.

"Sweetheart, did you hear Mama?" his mother said again, and only then did Dim-Dim realize he had missed her words.

"Mama said you and Damian have an uncle in London. He runs an inn near the River Thames. He can take care of you when I'm gone."

Dim-Dim stared in horror. "I don't want to be taken care by someone else!" he shouted, angry and scared.

"It's okay, it's okay, we'll be fine tonight," his mother whispered soothingly. But Dim-Dim could hear the lie in her voice, and he tried to stay calm as not to panic his mother.

They remained silent in the basement, until suddenly they felt a jolt from above, accompanied by the sound of something heavy falling and shattering, followed by a deafening shriek.

Sand began to fall from the corners of the basement ceiling, and then the basement roof was torn open by tremendous force.

The next moment, Dim-Dim witnessed the monster up close. He could see its large, long legs, with shiny spikes. When it roared, the spikes on its legs seemed to vibrate and open, revealing its bright red insides. The inside of the creature's roaring mouth was full of hundreds of spikes as long as a forearm and as sharp as razor blades.

"Hide!" his mother shouted, and Dim-Dim ran behind the cardboard boxes in the basement. Without him being able to control it, he suddenly turned into a fly—the only animal that crossed his mind, a small and hard-to-catch creature.

Wait, why his mother wasn't hiding too?

With his compound fly eyes, he watched as the monster lifted one leg and attacked his mother. Half a second later, his mother was thrown out of the basement.

NO! Dim-Dim screamed inwardly. His anger rose, mixed with overwhelming fear and pain.

Dim-Dim immediately transformed into a grizzly bear and climbed out of the basement.

Upon reaching the top, he saw his house in ruins, with no intact walls and dust everywhere. And from various directions, the house was surrounded by Venators—eleven in total.

"Dim-Dim, is that you!?" his brother shouted, and Dim-Dim turned to see his brother standing near the entrance of the house.

He turned for only a second, because the next moment the monster lunged one leg into his arm, and Dim-Dim who was in the form of a grizzly bear was thrown far, hitting the debris that used to be the kitchen. Sharp pain immediately shot through the bear's back and neck.

The bear roared.

Relentlessly, the monster charged towards him. But at the same time, Damian had already jumped over the house debris and arrived in front of Dim-Dim.

Without showing any fear, Damian welcomed the monster with his bare hands, grabbing its legs, and then throwing it back into the middle of the house. Causing the ground shaking a bit. Not far from where the monster landed, lay Dim-Dim's deceased mother.

"Fire!" Damian shouted, and then Dim-Dim covered his ears with both hands as the guns went off. The round, black eyes of his grizzly bear stared at his mother's body, and tears filled his eyes.

*****

An hour later, Dim-Dim had been placed into a special van to protect people with super powers, it is undetectable by monsters, and now he found the Venators fighting around him. Clarinassa slapped Damian. Another Venator tried to restrain her, while a burgundy-haired woman aimed a weapon to threaten her to back off from hurting Damian more, but Clarinassa didn't seem afraid. She looked furious instead.

"Is that very hard to notify me that those monsters were heading to this city?" she yelled.

"Clark, please don't make everything more chaotic," said a Venator wearing square glasses and a white suit. "We've been chasing the monster from Ottawa all night. The monster is unusual fast. You can't imagine how overwhelmed we were. We couldn't even take a minute's rest."

"Shut up, Valee Campbell," Clarinassa growled. "15 seconds. That's the time you needed to call me!" Now, she glared sharply at Damian. "Your mother died because of you!" And at that moment, Dim-Dim saw Damian push Clarinassa hard, so quickly that no one could prevent the movement.

Clarinassa was pushed until she hit the floor of the van. The woman immediately got up with a knife and lunged at Damian.

"Clary," Damian hoarsely said, holding the sharp edge of Clarissa's knife with his calloused palm. "You're the one to blame for my mother's death. You stayed there last night. Where were you when that monster killed my mother? You lucky I didn't prosecute you to the Venator court."

"Prosecute me?" Clarinassa looked offended. "Two people got powers last night. There was an old man across the street, he could predict the future and he told me. Thanks to the team that failed to hunt down the monster in Huntsville, now he's dead! At the same time, there's a monster from Ottawa attacking the city. Two monsters attacking Toronto in the same time, and you're still blaming me?" Then, Clarinassa turned and stormed out of the van.

Dim-Dim swallowed. He knew exactly who the old man Clarinassa was referring to.

*****

"Sorry, Venators can be a bunch of idiots who only use their muscles when there's a problem like this," said a Venator that wearing a white robe and square-framed glasses, as the other Venators had left the van and were tidying up the remnants of chaos in the city caused by monsters and helping bury the casualties and Dim-Dim's mother. He squatted in front of Dim-Dim, carefully turned on a small flashlight, and asked Dim-Dim's eyes to follow his finger.

For a moment, Dim-Dim's reddened eyes because of grieving for his mother's death followed the man's finger. "Are you a doctor?" Dim-Dim asked a minute later after calming himself down. He then pointed to the sniper rifle on the man's back. "Or a Venator?" He remembered Clarinassa calling the man Valee Champbell.

"Ah, I'm a Venator, but I also serve as a personal medic for my team. You can call me Dr. Valee," explained Dr. Valee. "So, what's your superpower? Can you control it?"

Dim-Dim fell silent, and a feeling of guilt spread throughout his heart: a feeling of blaming himself and the situation. Because of this superpower, his mother died. How foolish he was to ever desire this unimportant superpower. If only he hadn't gotten this foolish power, maybe his mother would still be alive, and they could watch TV together and—

"Here are the valuable items we managed to salvage from your house," a woman with burgundy hair and a heart-shaped face just entered the van, carrying a cardboard box. She squatted next to the box for a moment and showed a pearl necklace, Dim-Dim's phone, a family photo album, money, certificates, and various other items. "I found quite a bit of money, enough to cover your living expenses until adulthood in Safe City if managed properly, so I guess you can keep the necklace," she explained.

Dim-Dim accepted the pearl necklace, which he recognized as his mother's, and tucked it deep into his pocket.

The burgundy-haired woman tidied up the items in the box and taped the cardboard shut. Then she noticed Dim-Dim being unusually quiet and shuffled closer to him with a gentle and friendly smile. "Hey, I just remembered I haven't properly introduced myself," she said softly. "My name is Charlotte Mew. I'm the vice captain of this team, which means I'm under your brother. Um... you know, I feel sad too, about your grief and your brother's, but..." she paused for a moment, and her smile turning sad, "we Venators are not accustomed to expressing condolences to others. We often turn a blind eye to someone's grief. That's how we protect our hearts, Dim-Dim. I hope you're not disappointed in us."

Dim-Dim shook his head. He looked into Charlotte's brown eyes and said, "I get it, and I'm not mad at you."

"You're a good boy." Charlotte sat next to Dim-Dim and then she said cheerfully, "By the way, have you ever heard of Safe City, Dim? Now we Venators will escort you until you arrive in Safe City! Yeaay!"