Chapitre 161: 159: A Company of Fools: Demons of Sho’lajah III
"You f-f-fuckers think you c-c-can get away with t-t-this! When the others find out what you d-id, y-you're dead!" The leader shouted.
The leader was tied to a chair, his face beaten and swelled all over thanks to Sin's 'questioning', which was basically just Sin punching the leader in the face without asking a single question.
"Shut up and tell me what I need to know!" Sin snapped as the leaders head jerked back, and blood sprayed into the air from the force of Sin's punch.
"You haven't asked any q-q-questions!" The leader snapped only to be punched again.
"Oops, I'm so sorry about that. Let me try again." Sin replied, his voice dripped with sarcasm as he narrowed his eyes. Sin reared back and slugged the leader so hard the chair he was tied to fell back.
Iris and I stood at the back of the small room. Sin had dragged the leader to be 'questioned' and watched. It had only been fifteen minutes, but the leader looked like he'd been beaten up on by an entire mob of people instead of just one man.
"F-For Ra's sake! J-just tell me w-what you w-w-want to know!" The leader barked.
"You should already know the answer to that! After all you sent some fuckers to kill me yesterday!" Sin barked back and stood over the leader and started pummeling him with punches. The sound of his head bouncing on the concrete echoed in the small room.
"I w-was following orders!" The leader pleaded. I walked over to Sin and placed a arm on his shoulder and Sin stopped the assault immediately.
"Who's order? Who put the hit out on me and me employees?" Jane asked calmly.
"Our new l-leader! Valk!" He replied.
"Why?"
"I don't know!" The leader yelled. "Y-you t-t-took out Draco! Maybe he S-s-s-sees you as a threat!"
"That would make sense…but where is he getting all the evos? Thrads are hard to come by in this city since none of the evo's bases have habitats in a desert?" I asked. The leader stiffened and looked away.
"I don't know." He said softly.
"That's obviously a lie." Iris spoke up and walked over from her place in the corner.
"I don't know a-a-anything! My answers not changing." He yelled. I channeled shock attribute mana into my left hand and let arcs of lighting dance between my fingers.
"Why do I highly doubt that?" I said then smiled deviously. "Now look there are two ways we can do this. You can tell me what I want to know and me and my associates will be on our way or you can pretend that you know nothing and I can test to see just how much electricity a man can handle."
"You w-wouldn't, that would kill me!"
"Don't worry. I'm very good at healing magic. You won't die and we can spend hours learning together." I said with a demented chuckle. The leaders eyes widened as I reached out to touch him.
"I'LL TALK! I'LL TALK!" He bellowed and thrashed around. Sin grabbed the guy by the hair and yanked him back up to a seated position in the chair.
"Then talk!" Sin snarled in the leaders face.
"Justice technologies! T-t-they're giving us evos!"
"Why?" Iris asked.
"I….don't know…" He said cautiously. I narrowed my eyes at him and then grabbed his shoulder. He screamed as electricity coursed through his body. When I let go he panted and looked up at me pleadingly "I swear I don't know! Only Valk does! I know how they're bringing evos into the city though!"
"Start talking!" Sin snapped.
"339 Crudziq Avenue! I-i-i-it's a warehouse in Bronze City!" He exclaimed. "The red dragons used it to smuggle weapons into the city before moving them to their second warehouse!"
"You know we're that is?" I asked Sin. He nodded and frowned.
"It's on the fringe of the city. Near the outskirts. Pretty much nothing out there but sand since the desert started swallowing it up." Sin said. "Because of how far it is from the gold city the red dragons could smuggle illegal stuff inside of the city from there as well as smuggle them out."
"Sounds like we have a place to start looking…" I said then placed my hand on the leader and shocked him until he passed out then stopped channeling mana. "…let's head back to the shop and form a plan. They'll wake up eventually."
I turned and headed towards the exit. Iris followed close behind with Sin at our flank. When we made it outside we were greeted with the sight of a small army of fire dragons heading our way. I groaned and looked to Sin and Iris.
"Guess we took too long getting that information…" I sighed. Iris looked concerned and reached for the bowie knife attached to her leg.
"That's a lot of them Chase. Running might be the smart choice for once." Iris said. I smirked then bit my finger to draw blood and started writing runes on my forearm.
"Yeah but retreating makes it look like we're scared of them. And we at Sho'lajah artifact company are not afraid of anything…except spiders." I said then channeled mana into my forearm.
I cast an offensive spell sigil and storm clouds started forming in the sky above us. The fire dragons stopped their approach seeing the sky suddenly change and looked apprehensive. I snapped my finger and eight bolts of lightning shot down and struck the center of the group one after the other. Lightning arched and danced around the members of the fore dragons making them shake and convulse before dropping to the ground unconscious.
"I keep forgetting how stupid powerful your blood casting is…" Iris groaned as the sky started to clear.
"Twilight let's get out of here…." Sin sighed as he summoned his evo.
***
"CHASE!" Bo bellowed as Sin, Iris and I all walked through the shop door. Bo was standing in the center of the shops empty showroom with his arms crossed and face red with anger.
"What's got you all in a tizzy?" I asked as I walked inside.
"You guys left me behind." Bo grumbled.
"No we didn't!" I exclaimed.
"Saying we left you behind Bo, implies that we meant to take you with us in the first place." Iris spoke up. Bo gasped and looked at Iris and me like we'd betrayed him.
"Oh come on! How come you guys always leave me when things are getting interesting!" Bo exclaimed.
"Because you're ten." I said then walked over to him and ruffled his hair. Bogrumbled and smacked my hand away.
"I'm ten and a half." Bo griped.
"Still ten." I said.
"But closer to eleven than I'll ever be to ten again." He replied. I rolled my eyes and flicked his nose.
"You're way too young to be getting involved with all this gang stuff. Best you stick to studying so you can have a future." I said. Bo fornwed and looked to Sin.
"It's a little difficult to study when one free loafer snores like a elephant." He said. Sin curled his upper lip and shook a fist at Bo.
"Who you calling a free loader you little brat!" He snapped.
"If the gangster's shoe fits…" Bo teased. Sin curled his upper lip at Bo then paused and smirked.
"Freeloader or not, brat, at least I'm trusted enough to actually have a title and don't have to make one up like you do." Sin said. Bo's face flushed with anger and he stomped over to Sin. What the pint sizes punk planned to do to the oversized behemoth that is Sin I had no idea but we had work to do.
"Cut it out you two." I said stepping between them then looked to Sin. "Before you look smug for pissing off Bo please remember you're letting a child get on your nerves."
"You let Bo get on your nerves all the time!" Sin snapped.
"Yeah but I'm still an immature teen, you're a grown ass man." I retorted. Sin scowled and stomped towards the back rooms.
"Oh fuck off! I'm not that much older than you!" He snapped.
"Telling your boss to fuck off, real mature Sin. I might not have a title but at lease I act my age." Bo teased. I walked over and smacked him on the back of his head.
"I just said don't start!"
"Owww!" Bo grumbled.
"Don't be a brat then!" I chastised him then followed after Sin. Iris chuckled lightly then followed behind me. The three of us made our way into the kitchen area of the shop and sat down around the table.
Neither Nate or Jade were anywhere to be seen which meant they were out dealing with company business. Bo walked into the kitchen shortly after everyone was seated and pouted as he made his way past us.
"Bo where are your parents?" I asked. He frowned and crossed his arms.
"They took Gargesh and left to talk with some contractors about the shop. I let mom borrow Midnight so they could get there quicker." Bo replied.
"I see…they're not alone at least…." I said.
"Good thing you let them use Midnight, there's a hit out on their heads. Chase and Sin's too." Iris said. Sin and I looked at Iris like she'd lost all sense. "What?"
"A HIT!" Bo bellowed. Sin and I groaned and smacked our foreheads.
"Yes there is a hit out on all of us. But we're taking care of it." I said quickly.
"Why didn't you tell me? Did mom and dad know?" Bo demanded.
"Yes, I told them immediately." Sin said.
"Like I said we're handling it." I insisted however Bo had already walked over to another open seat at the table and sat down.
"So what's the plan to deal with the bounties?" Bo asked.
"None of your business!" Iris griped. Bo crossed his arms and looked at Iris with a devious grin.
"Well you can clue me in now or I can just follow you later and get caught up in whatever drama you're about to start." He said, for added effect he batted his eyes at her and smiled sweetly. I groaned and glared at Iris, who just now realized what she did, mouthed sorry to me.
"Okay fine! Little brat…" I grumbled. Bo smiled triumphantly. "…Sin tell us what you know about that warehouse and section of the city."
"Well for one its pretty hard to get to. In order to reach it you have to cross the furthermost part of the bronze city to the east and then cross a pretty sizeable section of the desert." Sin said.
"Well since we have Twilight getting to it won't be much of a problem." Iris commented.
"True however the main problem is that the warehouse was one of the main ones the red dragons used in order to smuggle their illegal shit into the city. Thanks to that a lot of red dragons were posted their at all times. I'm willing to bet that almost all, if not all, of those guys now work for the high fire dragons."
"About how many do think they'll have there?" Iris asked. Sin crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully for a few moments then looked back down at Iris.
"Well there were originally more than an hundred men stationed there at all times. Since the high fire dragons probably turned that into their headquarters so I'd say probably more than a hundred fifty." Sin said.
"That's way too many!" Iris shouted and jumped to her feet.
"Yeah…even I have to say that's a bit much." I added.
"Yeah… I know…we'll need a pretty good plan." Sin said eying me expectantly. I crossed my arms and scratched my chin for a second.
"Might be a good time to try out those…" I said absentmindedly then channel mana into my void pocket enchanted ring and casted the axiom spell sigil. When the pocket opened I reached inside and pulled out one of the old flintlock I procured the night we blew up the weapon depot.
I had made some small modifications to the flintlock. I removed the primer and firing pin then took off the barrel and etched several rows of runes onto it. Most of the runes were for channeling mana through the metal and to the barrel, where another ring of runes wrapped around the tip of the barrel. Those runes were "condense" "focus" and "fire". The grip of the flintlock which had originally been old wood I replaced with a new grip I made out of cherry wood and bored a hole in the center of it and placed a mana crystal that I had made into it. I etched more runes around the crystal. They were "collect" "store" and "distribute"
"What the hell is that?" Iris asked, eyeing the gun suspiciously.
"An enchanted item that's the first of its kind. I call it The magi-tech Mana-lock." I said proudly presenting the mana-lock. Iris looked at me in disbelief.
"You made a enchanted gun?!" Iris snapped.
"Actually I made four." I said then reached back into my void pocket and pulled out two more then placed them on the table and slid them over to Iris and Sin.
Sim picked up the mana-lock and looked it over and after a quick examination nodded and placed it back down on the table.
"I have no idea how to use that." Sin said in an oddly confident voice.
"It's actually pretty easy…." I started only to be cut off by Iris.
"I don't care how you use it! I'm not going to! A real splicer wouldn't degrade themselves by using such barbaric and mundane tools!" Iris snapped.
"That's the same attitude that Jane had about techno-splicing and me creating a new way to splice. Don't forget how that ended for her." I said coldly. Iris flinched slightly at my tone. "We're going go be going up against a large number of enemies and knowing our luck this isn't going to be the only time, instead of hiding behind this stupid sense of pride which will only get all of us killed, embrace the tools you have at your disposal and make a difficult task easier."
"Yeah I agree with the boss. If this is going to make storing that warehouse easier then fuck it, give me two!" Sin exclaimed then picked up the mana-lock. Iris looked away and gritted her teeth as a conflicted look spread across her face.
"I don't really understand how a enchanted gun is going to help us take out a warehouse full of gangsters." Bo piped up.
"You'll see…" I said with a devious smirk that made everyone flinch. "..as for actually attacking the warehouse…we'll need Alpa'nagia and Bone-lasher."
"But those two are watching Lady Jane!" Iris protested.
"We can swap them out with other non-mana using evos. When going up against a force that outnumbers your own, you meet them with overwhelming power." I said.
"I get it. You want to make a high powered evo squad to get them to launch all their evos at once." Sin exclaimed. I nodded then raised the mana-lock.
"A attack from a large group of incredibly powerful evos will rattle them and make them scramble their forces to stop the assault. Leaving them open to an attack from behind. We go in, take out any who get on our way and deal with whoever put the hit on us and who in Justice technologies is giving them evos." I explained. Sin and Bo nodded in agreement while Iris still looked conflicted.
"Is it really right to throw away one's pride like that…?" Iris muttered to herself while looking down at the mana-lock.
"Those who refuse to change have no right to complain when circumstances change beyond what they can handle." I warned. Iris looked to me and scowled then jumped to her feet.
"Not all change is good!" Iris snapped then stormed out of the kitchen, leaving the mana-lock on the table. I grabbed the mana-lock and put it back into my void pocket.
"She's stubborn." Sin grumbled.
"You have no idea…though she's not as bad as Jane." I said with a sigh then stood up. "Come on the sooner we head to the college and get my evos back the better."
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone