Shadow Slave

Sunny get out of the PTV, somewhat apprehensive of what he was about to see. The police officers present at the scene looked very relieved to see Master Jet and him appear — their tense faces cleared, and the darkness hiding in their eyes seemed to dissipate a little.

This was not at all how these types of situations were usually portrayed in popular media. In the crime mystery shows, whenever a plucky mundane detective encountered a cold and by-the-book Awakened agent, their relationship always started very confrontationally, with mutual disdain and debates over who was supposed to handle the case… only to end as an entertaining team-up, of course.

Once again, reality turned out to be very different from how storytellers liked to portray it. There was no conflict over jurisdiction or negativity expressed by the police officers. Instead, they were genuinely happy to see the Awakened specialists arrive.

…Well, of course they were. It was just as the old policeman had once told, right before Sunny faced the First Nightmare — if he died there and no Awakened was near, they would have to fight the Nightmare Creature his body had turned into themselves. And that was not something mundane humans ever wished to do.

Master Jet walked over to one of the policemen and greeted him with a short nod. Despite the fact that he was much older than her — not to mention Sunny himself — the officer treated them with the utmost respect.

"Nice to see you again, ma'am. Greetings, sir. Let me show you the way."

He led them deeper into the alley, toward a heavy metal door that hid in the deep shadows. It was wide open, and there were strange flashes of intense white light coming out of it, mixing with the red glow of the police sirens. The whole situation seemed a little surreal to Sunny, as though he was in the midst of a strange dream.

'I mean… where else would I be addressed as "sir" by a police officer? Life sure is funny sometimes…'

Slightly amused by this thought, he turned to Master Jet and asked:

"What is this place?"

She hesitated for a few moments, then said in an unexpectedly dark tone:

"It's a… club, of sorts. Called the Slaughterhouse. One of the few such establishments in the city."

Sunny stared at the door, which had no sign or any indication that there was a club on the other side of it. Was this a marketing ploy to create a feeling of mystique and exclusivity, or were there things going on inside that needed to be hidden?

"...A peculiar name for a nightclub."

Jet smiled with a corner of

for a very specific clientele. The ground floor is your usual dance club, but beneath it, there is a VIP area with an underground

and then added

of course, and the club profits from the rich assholes who enjoy watching this sort of thing enough to recoup losses if one of the Echoes is accidentally destroyed. Everyone wins…

Sunny frowned.

and that there were arenas where precious Echoes were made to

I suddenly become a child after the

worked, from his childhood in the outskirts. His current surprise was

happened

Master Jet shrugged.

what we have to find out. All I know is that everyone inside

spared her a

proper mess there, ma'am. Not for people with weak stomachs. And also not something that

'Charming…'

hall flooded by flashing lights, blinding white mixing with short moments of absolute darkness to create a strange and invasive atmosphere. It was hard to perceive anything in this

Master Jet frowned:

the light

looked

how to turn off the music, but the lights are giving us

him

get on

away, shouting at his colleagues. A few moments later, the hall suddenly became enveloped in darkness, and then the regular illumination kicked

constantly flashing strobe lights, the club looked smaller and more worn down than Sunny had expected. He did not pay too much

his face, Sunny was looking at the

and terribly disfigured, as if chewed and spewed out by a tornado. But of course, a natural disaster had nothing to do with what