~Subject to change as I continue writing and creating this story~

Five men in hooded robes worked fast, but cautiously around a giant machine. Plugging giant wires in here and there, then running those same wires down into a hole about 12” in diameter and travelling around 12’ under the surface. Other wires coming from the machine ran to the back of a large freighting copter and up into the cargo area, plugging into a giant half globe of glass sitting atop a very large metal box with dials, buttons, and sensors on every side. Inside that ball was just a faint purple glow, slowly pulsing in and out seeming to match the wind.  Each pulse coming when the wind died or kicked back up, if anyone of the strangers working on this strange machine would of looked up, they would of seen that the twinkle of each star seemed to match the slow, pulsing, purple glow coming from the globe. But no one ever did, each one kept to their duties, plugging wires, adjusting dials, wordlessly working to get their machine up and running.

After a few moments someone stepped out from the cab of the freight van and quickly walks towards the men working, “Boss is almost here, you guys almost ready?” He snaps at them.

One of the hooded men looks up from the dials on the machine he had been adjusting, “Yes, just a few more things. We will be ready in 2 minutes”

The man the came from the van nods at him “Good” and starts heading back to the cab of the van, but instead of getting in he goes to the front of the vehicle and stands in front, staring out into the darkness. Miles away, like a bright beacon, was a large city, glowing brilliantly with a golden aura of light. The man stared into the darkness, towards the city, and smiled. A minute or two later, he catches sight of a glowing light in the distance. Squinting the man tries to focus on the light, slowly making its way toward them.

Another minute and a half later a sleek, and dark colored copter flew into view. Slowing down as it neared the men on the hilltop and coming to a complete stop 80 feet in the air above them. As the small copter slowly descending altitude, the man from the freighter ran over to the men working around the giant machine. “You guys done? He’s here, you better be fucking ready!” He yells, then ran back over to where the car was descending and waits.

After the vehicle touched down on the ground, the engine is quickly shut off and the pilot immediately stepped out and almost sprinted around to the back door opposite of him and opened the door for a tall, slender man with a handsome face and dark black hair swept off to the side, stepped out of the back of the copter and started walking towards the machine on the ground.

The man from the van quickly ran over to him “Jack, good to see ya boss. We got everything ready to go for ya.”

“Rahl my friend, it is good to see you too. My time is short tonight so let’s get right down to it, how long will it take? The. . . removal process?” Jack said in a stern, but friendly tone.

“It should only take about 20 minutes to completely drain this area” Rahl replied with a half-smile, trying to hide his fear. Those damned ‘scientists’ of his told him 10-15 minutes, but there was no way to get everything done in that time. Packing and unpacking the machine damn near took a half hour with the 5 men he had.

Jack smiled “20 minutes? Excellent. And they won’t be able to tell where it’s all going to, correct? At least not until we are long gone?”

“Ha, no! Not a chance in all hell’s! It’ll take em’ at least 5 to figure out what’s even going on, then another 10-12 minutes trying to find the spell and the Alchemist to cast it, that will be our warning signal, and we are about an hours fly away from there to here. That gives you a hell of a lot of time to not be here, and us a good amount of time to pack everything up and get out here as well.” Rahl spoke eagerly, then hesitated before asking. “So we are good with time? I know your scientists told you 10 to 15, but I don’t think they realized the work to set the machine up, nor tear it down. Even with the 5 best engineers money could buy.”

“Yes, the time should be alright. I figured those paper pushers would have no idea of the work to set the machine up. When planning this all out, I actually gave us 30 minutes for the removal, and another 30 for set up and tear down.” He paused to look at Rahl directly “The tear down will go as planned, correct? 30 minutes is enough?”

“Oh, it’ll be enough, set up takes a while, but tear down is four times as quick. Aye we’ll be out of here with plenty of time to spare, plus all their spells and tracking will lead them here. No more. They will be able to tell it was all pulled out from here, but they won’t know which way we took off. Plus, I might have a few other tricks up my sleeve.” Rahl replied with a wicked grin.

“As long as you bring me my cargo.” Jack said with a touch of coldness in his voice, “Let’s get this started.”

“Yes! Of course,” said Rahl, then turned and ran to the hooded man he was talking to earlier. “Alright old man, get it going.”

“Hail the Equalizer” The old hooded man screeched, and all 5 hooded figures went to the machines, three of them to the one in the back of the van, two to the machine on the ground. “Three, two, one. . . begin!” The old hooded man shouted and all 5 men each hit a button whirring the machine to life.

Immediately there was a small humming sound coming from within as both machines and the gauges on them came to life. Some of them were just barely moving up and down, while others were bouncing up and down quickly and violently. After a few moments, the humming got much more intense and higher pitch. “Yes! We are live, it’s working!” The older hooded man was practically shouting with glee.

Jack smiled “Beautiful.”

It was almost as if the wind tried to answer him as it intensified. Rahl shifted as he tried to maintain his balance in the now heavy gusts of wind. The old man turned from his post at the machines control panel. “The wind! She tries to fight us!” He screamed.

Jack turned to him and snarled “Hold your superstitions old man and get back to work!”

The old man practically jumped back around to face the machine. “Come on men, power reading is stabilizing. Allen, what’s the pressure reading at?”

One of the younger men in hooded robes turned from his small control panel to look at the older man yelling. “Pressure is high, but stabilizing. Nothing out of the ordinary, yet.”

“Good. Keep a watchful eye on that gauge.” The older man said as he looked back down to his panel and turned a few knobs. “Removal speed picking up now.”

Now inside that glass globe in the back of that freighter, the purple light was glowing a bit brighter, and getting brighter every moment. Growing from the faintest purple glow into a small ball of swirling, pulsing, purple substance. Within a few minutes, the size of the purple glowing ball had doubled, now as big as a small boulder. Each pulse, the wane and wax of this strange substance life force, pulling more and more into the globe. A few minutes after that, instead of looking like a glass ball with something inside, it more resembled a giant purple ball of glowing, pulsing light. And when the machine finally slowed and came to a halt and the very last of this purple light drained from the ground and into the glowing ball of purple in the cargo van, the wind seemed to pick up one last time, as if drawing it’s last breath before dying down for the remainder of the night.

As the men quickly disconnected the machine and started loading everything into the cargo van, Rahl ran over to where Jack was standing. “Hey boss, you need to get out of here. We have everything under control and will be on route with the cargo in 10 minutes. Which should be at least 35 minutes before anyone can arrive here.”

“Yes, just one more thing. Driver!” The pilot of the Jack’s copter came running forward with a small metal box in hand. “Yes sir! Here it is.”

The pilot handed the box over and Jack opened it pulled out a shiny piece of metal and tossed the box back to the pilot. He then walked over to where the machine had been plugged into the ground and tossed the metal object on the ground.

“That should give them something to think about” Jack said with a hint of a grin showing. He turned to Rahl “Get this van to my warehouse, I’ll see you there” Without waiting for any reply he turned and headed towards his car, hopped in the back and the copter quickly and quietly disappeared into the night sky.

“You guys all packed and ready to go?” Rahl driver asked the old hooded man.

“Just strapping the machine down in the cargo bay and we are good to go, 2 minutes max.”

Rahl nodded and jogged up to the cab of the freighter and jumped in, a moment later the van’s engine kicked on. After they had the machine strapped down the old, hooded man used the intercom in the cargo bay and told Rahl they were good to go. A moment after that, the van’s cargo doors shut, and the van started lifting into the air. Keeping the van as low as he could and not risking hitting trees, the van driver took off in the same direction Jack had gone.

Darkness enveloped the hilltop, as the freighter’s lights secede from view. Besides a few footprints, and the metal object Jack had thrown on the ground, the only other sign left by these men was the giant burn scar left on the ground. The machine had left a deep hole in the ground and charring everything around that to a crisp. Though it would take many months to realize this, but this moonless night seemed to change many things on this world, and the wound left behind from this infernal machine would not heal for a long, long time.