Capítulo 123: 121: A Company of Fools: Shapers Market VI
"INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS!" More red dragons started screaming. They started mobilizing and blocking the entrance as well as the loading doors. I landed in the center of a mob of red dragons and spun around looking for a direction I could go.
"We're surrounded!" Bo yelled
"Thank you captain obvious!" I barked back.
"Catch them!" A red dragon yelled. Their comrades who surrounded us started to all charge Bo and me.
"Sorry in advance!" I said so Bo then tossed him high into the air.
"AHHHHHHH!" He screamed as he nearly reached the ceiling.
I switched from volt attribute mana I was channeling to shock attribute and sent a pulse of mana from my body. Lightning gathered in my chest and flew out at the approaching red dragons, shocking them in the chest and knocking them off their feet. After seeing their comrades getting shocked and electrocuted to unconsciousness the ones towards the back of the mob stopped instantly and jumped back to keep their distance.
"CHASSSSSSEEEEEEE!" Bo screamed as he fell back down to me. I caught him with one arm and kept the other pointed towards the red dragons with lightning sparking between my fingers as a threat. It kept the red dragons at bay but there were still more than thirty of them left.
"A-a-asshole!" Bo stuttered. He had his arms and legs wrapped tightly around the arm I caught him with and was shivering with fear.
"Language!" I snapped then eyed every one of the red dragons. "I don't want to fight you all but I will! Let us go and I won't hurt you…any more of you."
"I'm afraid I can't let that happen…" a voice said from above. Bo and I looked up and saw about twenty red dragons dressed in suits. If past experiences were anything to go off they were all splicers. They weren't alone however, the splicer at the head of the group had a young woman dressed in a tattered dress on her knees in front of him with a knife to her throat. She was gagged and shivered in terror.
"What the…?" Bo muttered softly. I could see the little gears turning in his head as he tried to make sense of the scene before him.
"…You two must be remnants of the bloody jaguars here for your old boss's daughter. Well here she is…so surrender or I'll slit her pretty neck." The lead splicer said, for emphasis, he sliced a small nick on her neck just below her jugular.
"Hey! Wait hold on! I have no idea who she is or what you're talking about. I'm not with the bloody jaguars or any gang!" I exclaimed. The lead splicer looked at his companions then chuffed.
"You mean you aren't here for her?" He asked sounding almost incredulous.
"No, I don't even know who she is?! I explained that already so you don't need to hurt her."
"Now that I think about it, it's been a few weeks since we last got a raid from those bloody jaguars…" The lead splicer said. One of his companions spoke up a little.
"It would probably be safe to assume that the last of them died during the last raid… Sadiq was there so carnage is to be expected." He said. The lead splicer curled his lip and looked down at the woman.
"That means we wasted weeks of money on a bitch we didn't need or could make money off of!"
"Money off of…?" Bo said softly then glanced up at me inquisitively. I ignored him for now, unsure of how I should answer.
"If you don't need her then you can let her go!" I exclaimed. The splicer leader's face darkened as he looked down at Bo and me.
"You're right I don't need her…" He said then with one quick jerk of his hand slit her throat. I stood rooted to the spot and unable to look away as he pushed her over the edge of the balcony and set her falling to the warehouse floor below. The red dragon goons that had been standing under the balcony jumped away quickly and watched as her head bounced on the concrete. She was dead the moment she hit the ground.
"AAAAAAHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Bo screamed.
"LOOK AWAY!" I bellowed as I grabbed Bo's head and forced him to look somewhere else. The lead splicer laughed and nudged one of his cronies with his elbow.
"Bitch had some bounce to her, you see that!" He joked, earning a laugh from the other splicers as well as the red dragon goons that surrounded Bo and me. I felt a searing rage well up in my chest as I gritted my teeth and looked around at the red dragons.
"Bo, I want you to close your eyes and no matter what you hear don't open them." I said as calmly as I possibly could but even then my tone came off as cold and rigid.
"He…he…" Bo stuttered, tears flowing.
"I know what he did. That's why I need you to close your eyes…you don't want to see what's about to happen…" I said letting some of my rage creep into my voice. Bo stilled and glanced up at me, I don't know what he saw but his face paled and he instantly covered his eyes.
"Tough talk from someone who is vastly outnumbered!" The lead splicer yelled
[Boss! Other human cornered.] Bone-lasher informed me and then shared a visual of Nate cornered in a long alley with no exit.
[Save him and don't let any of them escape…] I said coldly as I raised my right hand into the air.
[Yes Boss!] Bone-lasher replied with glee.
"Alpa'nagia!! Grimm-Guard!" I yelled as two crystalline structures form in front of my crystal and shot into the air. The first one flew a few feet and landed behind Bo and me while the second flew high up and broke through the glass skylight of the warehouse.
The first structure shattered on impact and Alpa'nagia burst forth letting out a deafening roar so strong the sheer force of it sent all of the red dragon goons closest to Bo and me flying back and extinguishing the flames that hadn't been put out yet.
Everyone else still left standing recoiled back as Alpa'nagia coiled his long serpentine body protectively around Bo and me. He flexed all four of his arms and popped his neck then looked around at his enemies, though prey would have been a better term for it.
"W-what is that?!" The lead splicer screamed.
"Death….!" Alpa'nagia hissed angrily as he stretched to his full height. "…death to any who would harm the Ssssstar Ssssshaper!"
"It can talk!" One of the underling splicer exclaimed.
"Who gives a fuck what it can do! Attack it now!" The lead splicer ordered and started casting an offensive spell sigil.
A gigantic wad of slime fell from the ceiling and dripped onto all the splicers standing on the balcony, interrupting their casting and tripping most of them. I glanced up and saw Grimm-Guard's massive head sticking into the warehouse through the broken glass of the skylight. He snapped his oversized mandibles with a loud angry chitter.
"Inferior prey! You dare raise your hand to Star Boss!" Grimm-Guard growled.
The splicers all tried right to stand up but they were quickly paralyzed by Grimm-Guard's poison. Seeing both Alpa'nagia and Grimm-Guard the red dragon goons all screamed and ran, scurrying towards the exits like cockroaches. The ones that made it to the doors first tried to open it, only to find the doors wouldn't budge. The ones that tried to leave through the loading bays were met with the visual of Grimm-Guard's underbelly and legs. Little did they know he'd wrapped his entire body around the base of the warehouse to cut off escape.
"What are your ordersssss Ssssstar Ssssshaper?" Alpa'nagia asked.
I set Bo down and covered his ears with my hands, channeling silence attribute mana into my palms.
"I don't want any survivors. If they can laugh at a dead woman, they can die like a dog." I said coldly. I suddenly remember the bodies in included spaces that Bone-lasher saw in the second floor and added. "You can kill the splicers but leave whoever is in that office on the second floor untouched.
"With pleassssure!" Alpa'nagia said then lunged himself at the screaming red dragons trying to escape. Grimm-Guard reached down and with his oversized mandibles easily destroyed the balcony the splicers were all laying on in one large bite.
The sounds of screaming, pleading, tearing flesh and general carnage echoed around me but thankfully Bo couldn't hear it.
As Alpa'nagia and Grimm-Guard took care of the gang I looked over at the woman the red dragons killed, it was so senseless and callous. They treated it like killing defenseless people was just another Tuesday for them.
'How long have people lived in fear of this?' I wondered.
When the carnage was over I picked up Bo and carried him outside back to the alley where Nate and I scoped the warehouse out earlier. I set him down behind the dumpster and tapped on his arm. Bo opened his eyes and looked up at me, tears streaming down his face.
"Are they all dead?" He asked.
"Yes…" I said, unable to think up a good lie. Bo nodded then wiped the snot from his nose and looked away from me.
"Good…" He muttered and stared down at his feat. "…that woman dying…it was all my fault wasn't it?"
"NO! It wasn't!" I insisted and knelt to one knee to be at eye level with him. "Those were grown men and women that decided to kill her. That decision was theirs and theirs alone. You can't blame yourself for the evil that people inflict on others or yourself. All you can do is swear to be better than them."
"Better?" Bo sniffled and looked at me.
"You're a splicer and a talented one but that doesn't give you the right to look down on someone because they're normal or less talented than you. It's best to treat others as they treat you. If they treat you like crap give them crap back but if they're nice be nice. Constantly trying to lord how special you are over everyone is only going to leave you alone and despised." I said.
"So if I don't want to be like them, I should help those women you said were stuck inside the warehouse right?" Bo asked. I nodded.
"Right, however this time I'm going to handle this. You shouldn't have to see stuff like that yet…or ever. Just wait here for a bit, I'll be back."
I smiled softly then stood and turned back around and walked back into the warehouse. Alpa'nagia gave me a boost so I could enter the second floor through the remains of the balcony. The inside of the second floor looked like the inside of a drug den. There was cheap furniture scattered throughout the area, holes punched into the walls, a pungent smell of piss in the air along with general filth.
I looked around the room and felt a pulse of energy leave my body as I shared Bone-lasher's vision. Behind a bookcase at the far side of the room were ten cages that looked to be made for large dogs or mid-sized evos were stacked two high and hidden away by the bookcase.
I walked over to the bookcase and frowned, it wasn't hard to guess where the hidden lever to open the bookcase was. The bookcase was bare save one book. I pulled the book and the hidden door opened I nearly gagged at the smell that radiated from that hidden room. The room was tiny, just barely wider than the cages, and with barely any ventilation.
I saw fifteen pairs of eyes staring back at me. Mixed looks of hope and fear on the woman that the red dragons had taken captive as they sat huddled in the corner amid their squalid conditions. I popped my claws and slashed the locks off the cages and opened them all and crouched down.
"Don't be scared, I'm not with the red dragons." I said in the softest voice I could manage. The women all looked at each other and then looked over my shoulder like they were looking for something or someone. "You don't have to worry about the red dragons, they're…not a problem anymore."
"Are they dead?" one of the women asked after several seconds of silence.
"Yes," I said with a nod. She eyed me for a second, trying to figure out if I was lying to her then crawled out of her cage and took a few reluctant steps into the room. Seeing there were no red dragons she waved to the others to follow. One by one they all climbed out of the cages and stood in the main room.
There were two things I noticed were common with all the women, the clothes they wore were old and ragged and on the verge of falling apart and they were all splicers. The first girl to speak up walked over to me.
"There was a normie girl with us…is she.... she…?" She asked.
"I'm sorry…she died…" I said softly.
"I see…" She said dropping her head.
"I know you all have been through a lot but could you tell me why the red dragons kidnapped you all?" I asked.
"Because we're female splicers with large mana pools. They kidnap us and sell us off to rich nobles who want to have children with us in hopes that our children will also have larger mana pools." She replied then shook her head.
"While things like mana pool are determined before birth there is an unpopular belief that the genes that determine mana pool size are carried through the maternal side of the family, passed from mother to child."
"I see…this is just straight-up human trafficking." I gasped. She nodded and motioned all around us.
"And it is the cornerstone of all of the red dragons' power and wealth…we found that out too late…" The woman added. "I am Sziffa, I used to be the leader of the Aguan Mystics in bronze town…but the red dragon crushed me almost a year ago."
"Well Sziffa, do you need me to escort you all anywhere? I can have one of my evos drop you somewhere safe?" I asked. Sziffa shook her head and smiled softly.
"That's kind of you to ask but after our imprisonment, I'm not too quick to trust the sudden help of others just yet. Don't worry about us, there are a few gangs in the silver city that still owe me a few favors." Sziffa replied.
"Are you sure? I mean my grandma would beat me senseless if she knew I left a bunch of women who'd been kidnapped alone after setting them free."
"If you took care of all the other red dragons then we'll be fine. The only reason we didn't break out earlier was we wouldn't be able to fight their splicers as well as all their henchmen at the same time." Sziffa explained.
"Okay…I guess…"
[They're all dead Boss!] Bone-lasher informed me through our connection.
[Good. Is Nate alright?] I asked.
[Yes. Human strong. Killed a lot by himself.]
[Okay…grab him we'll meet back up at the shop.] I ordered Bone-lasher.
[Yes boss!] Bone-lasher replied happily. I looked back at Sziffa and posted to the door leading to the first floor.
"All of you should leave as soon as possible in a few minutes I'm going to have my evos level this place. This neighborhood will probably be swarming with red dragons after that "I informed Sziffa.
"We'll be gone before you know it." Sziffa replied then turned and started herding the other women out of the room.
I turned and left the way I came in through the destroyed balcony. Alpa'nagia was still there waiting for me when I walked out. He carried me back down to the entrance. Once outside I waited until Grimm-Guard confirmed that all the women were out of the warehouse then ordered Grimm-Guard to destroy the building. It only took him a few seconds to tear the building down by wrapping around it and then squeezing it.
"Chase…?" I turned around and saw Bo standing at the front gate. Gadget was sitting on his shoulder, wiping the tears off Bo's face.
"Let's get you home…"
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES 
Hutexa_The_Djinn
Hutexa_The_Djinn Splicer fact: The name evo has been around since the beginning of humanity and the birth of splicing. However, no one knows what the term evo really means. Scholars have suggested that it is a shortened term that evo stands for evolved creature but given the nature of splicing that doesn't track. People have been divided about its meaning in the academic world but there is one held belief that the true meaning of the term evo will be revealed by a star farm crystal holder.
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