章 120: 118: A Company of Fools: Shapers Market III
"Gadget!" Bo exclaimed as his evo jumped into hos arms. I watched with a smile as he petted the little shit on the head and let it climb onto his shoulder.
We were currently hiding in a alley a few blocks away from the diner. After Bo's Gadget set fore to the kitchen and filled the diner with smoke Audin and his red dragon goons left. Rather than spend any time looking for us Audin ordered everyone to continue on with their actual objective of crushing the water foxes.
"Fuuuuck…I still need to get to that damn boutique." I said softly as I looked up at the morning sun. I turned to Bo and asked. "You wouldn't happen to know where the Venus culture boutique is, would you?"
Bo looked away from Gadget to me while still scratching the evo's stomach then scowled and shook his head.
"I've heard of it, I think everyone in the city has but I don't know where it is exactly. Its nothing but a snooty golden city shop, my parent's shop is much better anyway!" Bo replied. He gasped and looked to the west then down at Gadget. "The shop! I need to get back home to mom and dad!"
Bo turned and tried to run out of the alley but I grabbed his collar and stopped him before he got too far.
"Hold on speedy, you just had two run-in with those red geckos and now you want to go running back into their territory alone." I said.
"My home is in their territory, it's not like I have a choice!" He snapped and jerked out of my grasp and ran out of the alley.
'I could just leave now and try and find that boutique…but those red geckos I knocked out before could be conscious now and they know where the kid lives…fuck a duck!' I thought as I raced to catch up to Bo.
"Bo wait up!" I called out as I ran down the sidewalk after him. Bo looked back at me over his shoulder but didn't stop running.
"What do you want?" He asked.
"I'll walk you home, to make sure you don't get hassled by more of those gangster geckos." I replied. Bo slowed down and let me catch up to him. I slowed down as well to a speedy walk. We moved in silence down the sidewalk. It because blazingly obvious when we entered a neighborhood that was controlled by the red dragons.
While we were in the water fox's territory there were children out on the sidewalks playing, men sitting on stoops laughing and chatting, and woman walking the streets in groups gossiping. Even the buildings looked different slightly. The moment we crossed into red dragon territory I noticed that all the people disappeared, the buildings looked more run down and broken. The people we did see peeking out of windows and through cracked doorways looked fearful.
Men and women dress in bright red shirts patrolled the streets in large groups forcing Bo and I to start using alleyways and backstreets to sneak through the neighborhood. We passed several burnt-out or condemned buildings as we moved through the alleys. A few of the condemned ones had massive holes in them like an evo had charged through and destroyed the place.
"The owner probably couldn't pay the protection cost. The red dragons don't give many chances. If they were lucky the red dragons didn't lock them inside…" Bo explained when he noticed me staring at a burnt-out building as we rushed from one alley to the next.
"The fuck…" I muttered angrily. As we moved, Gadget was running ahead of Bo and acting as a scout to make sure that we didn't run into red dragons. It ran along the rooftops ahead swinging from one roof to the next using the clotheslines that were hung in the alleys and on power lines. Bo suddenly stopped and ducked behind a dumpster.
"Hide!" He hissed. I ducked behind the dumpster with him. Bone-lasher shared his senses with me again and my vision blurred as his electromagnetic vision highlighted the area around me. I saw what we were hiding from at the mouth of the alley ahead of us, a pack of red dragons was relaxing in front of the storefront that was on the street the alley let out to.
"Oh come on!" I hissed under my breath. "Why did those red geckos have to chill there?"
"You can see them?" Bo asked sounding a little amazed. The way the red dragons were gathered near the alley neither of us would have been able to see them until we left the alley.
"In a way. My evos can link their senses with mine and my liger shark can see everything for up to two miles." I explained. Bo's eyes lit up.
"You can do that too?" He gasped.
"Wait you can link your senses with your evo as well?" I asked. Bo nodded enthusiastically and smiled proudly.
"Yeah! My mom said it's because I have such a strong bond with Gadget. Though that's probably because I spliced him myself." Bo said. I arched a brow at the young boy.
"You spliced that evo yourself?"
"Yep! Felt really tired afterwards though. Mom said I used up most of my mana." Bo replied. To say I was impressed was an understatement. Checking to make sure the red dragons were still in front of the store I then decided to dig deeper seeing that they were still joking around.
"What animals did you use to make that?" I asked. Bo narrowed his eyes at me.
"Why?" He asked sounding slightly suspicious.
"I'm curious, nothing more really." I said. Bo looked me over for a few seconds then shrugged.
"Capuchin monkey, raccoon, and chipmunk." Bo answered. My eyes widened as I heard that.
"Wait that means Gadget is a tier three evo." I said, letting him hear the amazement in my voice. Bo smiled a big toothy grin and puffed out his chest.
"Yeah, he's small but really useful! More so than a lot of tier two evos! He's really smart, but then again he'll be three in a few months." Bo replied.
"Three? Wait you spliced that three years ago? How old are you?" I asked.
"Ten and a half." Bo replied. My mouth dropped as I stared at the young boy.
My amazement was more about Bo and less about his evo. Jane couldn't splice a tier three evo after spending years preparing for it and getting a mana system to help cut the cost on her mana. Whereas Bo was able to do it at seven years old, he more than likely didn't have a mana system at the time and didn't have the near-limitless wealth of a princess. To say his mana reserves had to be much larger than Jane's was an understatement.
"I'm impressed…and a little disheartened…" I said shaking my head. "I'm standing with a freaking ten-year-old that could splice a tier three evo at seven and I can't even splice a evo…"
"You can't splice?" Bo said sounding doubtful in my words. "But you said you had evos."
"I do but I didn't splice them. I learned a spell that prevents me from using the splicing spells. So I guess you could say I stole all mine from splicers that didn't deserve them." I replied. Bo shrugged and peeked out around the dumpster.
"If you can share senses with your evos that means they obviously care about you. So you can't be a bad guy, at least to them." Bo said. He tilted his head to the side then back to normal. "The red dragons walking away…we're not that far from the shop now."
I checked myself and saw the red dragons walking down the street away from the alley. Bo stood up straight and headed towards the mouth of the alley and quickly followed after him. We poked our heads out of the alley and then dashed across and quickly followed the sidewalk to the next street over.
"There it is!" Bo excited softly and pointed to a small one-story red brick building that sat at the far end of the street. Bo started running and I ran to keep up. Thanks to Bone-lasher I knew that all the red dragons were going in the opposite direction.
When we reached the shop Bo stopped for a second and waited as Gadget climbed down from the roof and landed on Bo's shoulder. Bo smiled and scratched the evo on its head.
I took a second to take a closer look at the store. The small brick building sat by itself on the corner of an intersection of three streets. A green awning ran the length of the storefront offering shade though like the rest of the building showed signs of wear and fading. There were two large windows on either side of the front door, the window on the right however was boarded up. Above the awning hung a large sign that said 'Evolved Oddities'.
"Let's get inside quick!" Bo said then opened the front door and ushered me inside.
The inside of the store reminded me of a jewelry store in my hometown. There were several glass cases in the center of the room in the shape of the room of a U with an opening towards the back of the store. On the right side of the room was a long glass case against the wall and ran the length of the room and four glass cabinets were against the wall on the left side of the room. At the back of the room was a wooden door that seemed to lead to a back room of the shop.
As we entered the shop a bell chimed signaling someone had come in. The door to the back room opened and a middle-aged white man that had the same boyish face as Bo walked out.
"Dad!" Bo exclaimed and ran over to his father. Seeing Bo run to him his father quickly crouched and hugged his son as he leaped into his arms.
"BO!" He exclaimed then grabbed Bo's shoulders and shook them. "Where have you been!? Your mother and I nearly had a heart attack! Jade! Bo's back!"
A short Egyptian woman rushed out from the back room and ran over to Bo the second she saw him, pulling him into a tight hug and checking him over then slapped him hard on his butt making him jump and cry out.
"Do you have any idea how worried we've been, your father and I wake up in the morning and go check on you and see your bed empty and you nowhere to be seen! I thought the red dragons had kidnapped you to make us pay their protection money!" Jade exclaimed. Bo lowered his head and fidgeted with his fingers behind his back, Gadget stood at his side mimicking his owner.
"Sorry mom…I was…" Bo started only to be cut off by his mother.
"I don't care what you were trying to do, you know the red dragons are dangerous and that you can't be outside and yet you sneak outside anyway! What if you had been attacked by red dragons?" Jade snapped. She suddenly noticed that I was in the room and pointed to me. "…and who is this?"
"HI, I'm Chase Kingston. I saved your son from a couple of red dragons." I said waving nervously at her.
Jade's eyes got wide then narrowed as she looked at her son. With lightning-fast speed she snatched Bo by the back of his neck and spanked him so hard I swore I heard thunder ring out throughout the store with each smack. Bo screamed and squirmed trying to get away from his mom, Gadget took several steps back and flinched at every strike, covering his eyes. When Jade finally let Bo go he had tears and snot streaming down his face and was sobbing. She pointed to the back room.
"Go to your room! We will talk with you later!" She ordered. Bo wiped his snotty nose and ran to the back room. Gadget tried to run after him but Bk's father quickly snatched the little evo by the scruff of its neck and held it in front of his face.
"Yeah, nice try. You get to go in the cage." He said and walked over to a small hamster cage on top of one of the long glass case and put it into the cage. "I know you helped him sneak out this morning Gadget so you get to be grounded as well."
Gadget chittered and screeched at it shook the cage bars trying to escape. Bo's parents shared a look then let out loud sighs and shared a brief hug. Which was when they realized that I was still there.
"I'll go make sure Bo actually went to his room." Bo's Dad said then followed Bo into the back room. Jade sighed and turned to me offering me a smile.
"Thank you for bringing Bo home. His father and I honestly thought the worst." She said. I shook my head.
"It was nothing, those red geckos weren't even splicers so it was no problem." I said. Jade chuckled lightly at my red gecko comment. Then her eyes landed on my farm crystal.
"A star crystal!" She exclaimed and rushed over and grabbed my hand and looked at my crystal. "You're that star crystal holder from the college!"
"Y-yeah….?" I replied, taken aback by her sudden outburst. "Feels weird to have a reputation that doesn't involve scorn."
Jade arched a brow at that comment but quickly dismissed it. It was then that I noticed that Jade had a sphere farm crystal on her left palm. Jade let go of my hand after a short examination.
"What is a student from Andromeda College doing down here in the silver city?" Jade asked. I looked away sheepishly.
"I was supposed to head to some expensive boutique, Venus culture boutique, for class. I got lost and that one stole my wallet…." I said pointing to Gadget. Gadget chattered at me like he was resenting being told on the turned around and flashed me his butt and smacked it. His way of saying kiss it I guessed.
"Oh he did, did he?" Jade asked eyeing the little evo. Gadget cowered slightly and covered its face with its paws. Jade looked back at me and sighed "Bo had him steal your wallet, didn't he?"
"Yeah. He was working with those red geckos. I overheard him trying to leverage Gadget's usefulness with them so they wouldn't collect protection money from you or mess with your shop." I explained. Jade looked like she was about to pass out when I told her that. Her face got pale.
"That boy! What the hell was he thinking?!" She exclaimed and ran her hands through her hair.
"I think he was just trying to protect his family…how much do you guys owe in protection, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Too much…you don't need to worry yourself with that. You've already done more than enough for our family by making sure that Bo got back home. You didn't even know him. Thank you." Jade replied. I shook my head.
"It was nothing. Like I said they weren't even splicers so it was easy knocking them out." I said. I glanced around and saw something in the U-shaped glass case that caught my attention.
I walked over to the case and was surprised to see that it was filled with vials of blood. The glass of the case was slightly frosted from the cold air in the case so I couldn't make out what DNA was in each vial but still, it was a lot of blood.
"You guys sell cultures here?" I asked glancing over at Jade. She nodded and walked around to the center of the case and opened it pulling out a rack of cultures for me to examine.
"We sell a little bit of everything, cultures, books, jewelry. Anything you can want for your splicing needs." Jade said, launching into an rehearsed speech.
I looked at the cultures regardless. Now that they weren't in the case I could clearly see that they were all marked. I picked up one that was marked African elephant and looked at it, I didn't know exactly what I was looking at or for but it seemed like the thing to do and the approving smile I got from Jade seemed to affirm that.
On a whim, I channeled mana into the vial and was shocked when u felt a jolt. As if by instinct my mind started memorizing the DNA of the culture and translated all of it into a lysdale script. Unlike when k did that with my evos this only took a few seconds. I shivered as the image of the elephant flashed in my mind.
"Huh…" I huffed then placed the culture back and grabbed another one marked black rhino and did the same I did with the elephant vial. The same thing happened with that vial as the last. My mind recorded the rhino DNA lysdale script in a matter of seconds. I placed the culture back and looked to Jade. "You wouldn't happen to sell a container to keep blood samples in would you?"
"Why yes!" Jade said then walked to the back room. When she came she had a small metal cooler with a handle. She walked back to me and set it down on the top of the case. "If you buy it with the cultures I'll take half off."
I took the cooler and opened it, a blast of mist flowed out of the container, there were enough slots in it to keep twenty cultures inside.
"How much are your cultures?" I asked.
"Depends on the culture. Our rarer cultures will cost more than the common ones." Jade answered. I picked up another culture and looked at it.
"And how much are the red geckos charging you for protection?" I asked briefly taking my eyes off the culture and looking at Jade. Her expression softened and she smiled softly.
"You don't need to worry about that…" She said. A brick suddenly flew threw the window sending glass spraying into the store. Jade screamed as Gadget started freaking out in his cage and both of us turned toward the window.
"Get out here Kestrel! We want our fucking money!" A voice screamed from outside. Bo and his father ran in from the back room.
"Jade! Are you okay?!" Her husband asked as he ran over to her.
"I'm fine Nate." Jade replied.
"KESTRELS GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE NOW!" A voice roared. Through the shattered remains of the window, I could see at least ten red dragon goons standing outside.
"I'll go and talk to them." Nate said to Jade and tried to walk outside.
"Are you insane! There are so many of them!" Jade exclaimed.
"I'll be fine! I'll just give them their money." Nate said.
"We don't have their money!" Jade exclaimed. Bo tried to walk around his mother and look out the window but she quickly grabbed him. "Bo go to your room!"
"But mom!" Bo complained, only to get a stern look from his mom. He groaned and stomped his feet as he walked to the back room. Nate kissed his wife and smiled comfortingly at her.
"I'll be right back…" Nate said then walked out the door to face the red dragons. Jade walked to the broken window to watch her husband. I followed her and saw Nate standing in front of the group of gangsters trying to talk them down.
[Prey!] Bone-lasher growled.
[Maybe, depends on them. I don't want to make things worse for Bo and his parents.] I told the murder happy liger shark.
"I don't want your fucking excuses! I want the money you owe the red dragons!" The leader of the goon group yelled. He was a tall Egyptian man dressed in a suit that had a red handkerchief in his breast pocket. There was a cube farm crystal where his right eye should have been. Everyone else in his group were dressed in jeans and red tee-shirts.
"How can we afford to pay you anything if you red dragons keep scaring away any potential customers!" Nate argued.
"Who the fuck said you could talk back to the boss!" one of the red dragon goons shouted then punched Nate in the gut. He doubled over and coughed then fell to his knees and the red dragon grabbed him by his hair.
"NATHAN!" Jade screamed and rushed outside.
'Fuck!' I thought as I ran after her.
"Jade go back inside!" Nathan wheezed, looking back at his wife. The splicer boss looked over to Jade and looked her over with a lecherous gaze that made even my skin crawl.
"Ah you're beautiful wife is here! Don't understand why such a beautiful splicer would want with a pathetic normie like you!" The splicer boss said walking over to Nate and kicked him across the face.
"Please stop!" Jade pleaded. "We'll get the money!"
"A little late for the money now!" The boss exclaimed and reared back to punch Nate.
"Hey, eye crust! What sort of man beats up on another man because he's pissed he doesn't have a shot with his wife?!" I shouted making the boss freeze mid-swing and looked at me.
"Who the fuck are you?!" He shouted.
"No one! He's no one!" Nathan answered quickly. The boss pointed at me and snapped his fingers.
"Fuck him up! Show him why you don't disrespect the red dragons!" He ordered. Three of his goons cracked their knuckles as they stepped toward me.
I channeled freeze attribute mana into my legs and stomped my foot. A wave of ice shot toward the goons and froze their feet all the way up to their knees. They all screamed and tried pull their legs free.
"A fucking splicer!" One of the goons exclaimed. All of them took a step back except for the boss. He narrowed his eyes at me and curled his upper lip.
"A star crystal…oh I see…you're that splicer from the college that's been big news for a minute. Chase Kingston…" He said then folded his arms. "My boss Audin sent a message to all the splicers in the red dragons about you. Seems you pissed him off, he offered a large reward to whoever can bring you to him."
"Wait a gangster put a hit out on me! I just refused his offer to join the gang!" I exclaimed and shook my head. I channeled gust attribute mana into my hands and held them out to the gangsters and hurricane grade winds shot from them and blew all the gangsters out into the street. "You know what I'll figure that out later."
"Nathan!" Jade exclaimed and ran to her husband.
"You son of a bitch!" The boss screamed as he stood up and started casting an offensive spell sigil. I ran in front of Jade and Nate and held my hand up channeling void attribute mana into it. The splicer boss shot a fireball at the three of us as a black hole formed in my palm. The fireball was broken down into mana and absorbed by me.
"Nice try Eye crust!" I said then glanced over my shoulder at Jade and Nate. "You two okay?"
"How?" Jade asked looking up at me.
"Stop, we can still pay some of the money…" Nate said as he stood up, grabbing his ribs.
"Fuck the money! Get him Poshin!" The boss yelled as a crystalline structure formed in front of his farm crystal and shot into the street in front of us. A titan emerged and roared. "Kill him!"
I channeled volt attribute mana throughout my body and charged toward the titan. It roared and slammed a fist down at me. I skidded to a stop and jumped back. Popping my claws, the mana I was channeling condensed into a lightning bolt between my claws. I aimed at the titan's right eye and fired, the evos head exploded as the lightning bolt shot through it's skull. The titan fell back and landed on top of a couple of the red dragons.
"POSHIN!" The splicer boss yelled and ran over to the corpse of his titan. "You fucking bastard! You're dead! You're so fucking dead!"
"Hey you attacked me first. If you want to be mad at someone be mad at yourself." I said with a shrug. The splicer boss pushed one of his goons and pointed at me.
"Fucking kill him already!" He shouted.
"He can use magic without casting spells what are we going to do?!" the goon asked. The boss grabbed his goon by the throat and pushed him towards me then started yelling at the goons that weren't trapped under his titan's corpse.
"You know what…" I started then pricked my finger on my bone claws and painted runes on my hand. I channeled mana into that arm and an axiom spell sigil formed in front of my hand and my shadow stretched out a few feet in front of me and a briefcase came out of the shadow. T was the same briefcase that had all the cash I got from Caspian and Hideyoshi. I opened the briefcase and pulled ten thousand dollars from it and waved it at the splicer boss. "…I'll pay you ten thousand dollars to take the other red geckos and leave."
"Are you fucking serious! You think money will stop us from kicking your ass!" The boss yelled.
"Because you've done such a good job so far…" I said making a sweeping motion at the state of his men. The few that weren't trapped under the titan were trying to pull the others out from under it. "…do yourself a favor, take the money and go back to your boss and tell him that they managed to pay up. Maybe even keep some for yourself…the alternative isn't so great for you…"
A crystalline structure shot out of my crystal and landed beside me. Bone-lasher roared and stood defensively between Jade, Nate, and I and the red dragons. The splicer boss' eyes darted between me and Bone-lasher. He gritted his teeth and then looked at the goon he pushed toward me.
"Get the money! We're leaving!" He ordered. I tossed the cash over to the goon and the briefcase sunk back into my shadow. The goon quickly snatched the cash and handed it to his boss.
I watched as the red dragons gathered themselves up and quickly left. The leader of the group stomped away angrily as the group scurried away. Bone-lasher growled at them as they retreated then nudged me.
[Feast?] He asked looking towards the titan's corpse.
"Knock yourself out." I said. Bone-lasher growled happily as it ran over and started eating the titan corpse.
"This is bad…really bad!" Nate exclaimed. "The red dragons aren't going to take that lying down! They'll be back! You should have just let me handle it! You made everything worse!"
"Fuck a duck…"
クリエイターの想い 
Hutexa_The_Djinn
Hutexa_The_Djinn World Fact: It is not uncommon for there to be a lack of policing in poorer communities in many parts of the world. This is due mostly in part by the large gap in wealth between the rich and the middle and lower class. While many police forces will allow gangs to act as the law and order for their undesirable communities they will not tolerate them trying to influence richer ones.
[HUTEXA_THE_DJINN HERE! Leave a review or a power stone of you like the story. Thank you!]
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