Capítulo 153: The Dark Angels Are Here
It had been a few days since Mesa has established the Dark Angels mercenary group. In these days, Mesa, Jasmine and Ophis had been working round the clock to grow their Grimm hunting operation. With a Bounded Field active around their base that would warn them of people approaching their base, they had set off to do their tasks. First using his telepathy, Mesa scanned the minds of the residents of Mistral in order to find Grimm hotspots in order to exterminate them. Delegating the tasks between the three of them, Mesa went out in order to secure for them means for receiving money and getting his hands on as many maps as he could get in order for their group to orientate themselves in this new world. For now, his main focus was on sending out himself and his shadow clones to the all the other cities, villages, settlements and generally everywhere where there were humans in order to add them to his rapidly expanding telepathic network.
That left Jasmine and Ophis to go out and exterminate these Grimm hotspots. In order for them to grow their Grimm slaying operation, Mesa had gifted Jasmine the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Though they already had a hunch that the shadow clones limit would apply to Jasmine as well, they tried anyway and quickly came to the conclusion that their hunch was correct.
Meanwhile, in a seedy bar in the more unsavory part of the already unsavory Lower Mistral, the leaders of one of the two ruling criminal gangs of Lower Mistral, the Harpy Gang, are in a meeting. They were discussing the arrival of the Dark Angels to Mistral and how they could use this opportunity to once and for all destroy their main rival, the Spider Gang.
For a long time, the two gang had been existing in a fragile peace with each other. The Harpy gang was known to be the most violent gang of Lower Mistral, engaging in everything from drug and weapons trafficking to murder for hire to human/Faunus trafficking and extortion and theft of military hardware. The only reason that they have not become the criminal leaders of Lower Mistral was because of the existence of the Spider Gang. And the Spider Gang was the only other gang in Lower Mistral that rivaled them in manpower and resources. This had the effect that the Harpy Gang and the Spider Gang had always existed in a fragile peace with one another that was frequently shattered with bar fights that would soon escalate into full on skirmishes, turf wars over who could control what areas and the occasional assassination plots against each other's leaders. Afterwards, the gang bosses would come together and hash out a peace agreement that everyone knew would not last long.
The boss of the Harpy Gang, Benjamin Harpy, a most violent monster of a man and one of the most feared in all of Mistral, was preceding over this meeting and telling his underlings to gather up their men and go to the Dark Angels and recruit them into their gang. With those Dark Angels under their control, they could wipe out the Spider Gang and finally take control of the criminal underworld of Mistral.
"But boss, what are we gonna do if they refuse us?" Asked on of the leaders.
"It is simple really. They won't refuse us because they will not be able to refuse us. These 'Dark Angels' may be the most renowned slayers of Grimm, but we are the Harpy Gang. And if they want to come into our turf, then they will have to pay the rent." Said Benjamin Harpy matter-of-factly.
"So here is what is going to happen. Callum, you, as one of my lieutenants, will take Bullin and Milosh and go to their base to give them my message. In the meantime, have their base surrounded by 100 guys, who are armed to the teeth, to show them that we mean business." He said as he walked over to the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon to pour himself a glass and down it in one go.
"So what will happen is, you will go inside and tell them we welcome them to the neighborhood and all that crap. After that, you will tell them that they owe us 1 million Lien in overdue payments that is due today." He continued on as he poured himself a second glass of bourbon and sipped it.
"And when they will inevitably protest this and give you all kinds excuses and all that shit, you make sure to let them know that they either pay up now or get wiped out. Only after that, when their despair is sufficiently stoked, will you tell them that we, as the Harpy Gang, are nothing if not gracious and civilized men and offer them the third option to get out of it all."
With that, the Harpy Gang went to work. Callum gathered his own two lieutenants, Bullin and Milosh and the 100 thugs to come with him and they took off towards the Dark Angels' base. So when the group of thugs had crossed the Bounded Field surrounding their base, a telepathic ping alerted Mesa, Jasmine and Ophis to their presence.
When the base was surrounded, Callum and his two lieutenants walked up to the great wooden double doors and pushed them open. What greeted them was a dark hall that was illuminated by burning braziers on poles set up along a red carpet all the way towards a dais with a throne on it. Sitting on this throne was a giant of a man with blond hair and piercing green eyes clothed in a robe and with a sword resting on his lap. Behind this man and on his left and right side where two cowled warriors holding a sword in both hands with the point resting on the ground.
The moment Callum, Bullin and Milosh walked into the hall and met the gaze of the one sitting the throne, they were immediately awestruck and slack-jawed for a second looking upon this being. They were overtaken by the sheer majesty of this being and felt a compulsion to get down and kneel in front of this being that they had to actively suppress. This being was the physical embodiment of a king if there ever was one. Standing there at the entrance for a second, nobody moved or said anything and the only sounds that were heard was the crackling of the fires in the braziers. After a scant few seconds, a deep rumbling voice from besides this seated giant spoke up.
"State your purpose."
Shaking themselves out of this trance, Callum remembered why he was here in the first place and resolved to accomplish it. What he did do though was avoiding eye contact with the huge person on the throne, whom he was certain was the leader of the Dark Angels, Lion El' Jonson. So with renewed resolve, Callum stepped forward in a haughty and callous way and this got Milosh and Bullin out of their stupor and they followed him.
"Yes, my purpose. Well first off, let me, on behalf of the people of Mistral, welcome the illustrious Dark Angels to our humble city." Said Callum with a theatrically exaggerated bow. If he was expecting any kind of reaction, he was sorely mistaken because neither Lion El'Jonson nor the two Dark Angels by his side said anything or even moved a muscle. They simply kept staring at them.
"But that does bring me to the… 'purpose' of my visit here." Said Callum as he walked over to one of the braziers and studied the intricate designs that were etched into it before turning away from it and addressing the Dark Angels once more.
"For you see, it turns out that you owe us, the Harpy Gang, a lot of money. 1 million Lien to be exact that is due today and then 1 million Lien every first Monday of the month. Cause it would be very unfortunate, if say, someone destroyed this beautiful keep of yours or god forbid, one your Dark Angels would find themselves suddenly in a pinch." Said Callum. And yet, there was no reaction what so ever from any of the Dark Angels. This started to make Callum feel apprehensive about this whole situation and Milosh and Bullin felt the same way.
After what felt like an eternity, there was finally a reaction. Lion El'Jonson put aside his sword, which Callum could see was as long as himself and just as wide, and stood up. It was then that the three of them saw just how massive Lion El'Jonson truly was. He was easily twice as long as any one of them and they realized that this may not have been such a good idea. But before Callum could tell him that they had their base surrounded and if he dared to harm them that they would die here, he heard loud crunch of breaking bones followed closely by a wet thud. Looking at the source of the sound, he saw Lion El'Jonson standing over Bullin's headless corpse with his right hand balled into a fist and covered in blood.
His eyes went wide with fear. He had never even seen him move and Lion El'Jonson was already amongst them and with a single punch, he smashed Bullin's head into so many bloody pieces. Bullin, who was a trained huntsman, who had long ago unlocked his aura and was even capable of taking a full on hit from a Beringel without breaking, was killed with a single punch.
"You…" Was all Callum could say as he went for his weapon before he was impact against his arm shattered both his aura and the bones of his arm holding the weapon. Before he could shout in pain, he was suddenly grabbed by the throat and bodily hauled into the air. Looking at the one holding him up by the throat, he could see Lion El'Jonson holding him in the air with a single hand that felt like vice grip tightening around his throat.
Meanwhile, Milosh went for his two gun swords and just barely got them up before his arms were sliced off by one of the Dark Angels that had rushed him. Dropping to his knees in unimaginable pain, looking at the blood shooting out of the stumps of his arms. Milosh barely had any time to utter a scream before the Dark Angel hefted his sword in the air and brought it down on him and bisected him from head to groin. And all this was witnessed by Callum, who was futilely resisting against the grip around his throat that was getting stronger and stronger by the second. And the last thing his mind registered before he lost consciousness was someone saying: "Kill them all."
When he awoke an unknown time later, Callum found himself suspended by his wrists in front of the dais looking straight at the sitting form of Lion El'Jonson again. But this time, he could not avert his gaze and fear had taken complete hold of him.
"All of your men outside are dead. And you will send a message to your leader for me." Said Lion El'Jonson in a voice that was like a hammer strike to his mind and soul, making him lose control of his bowels and piss and shit himself.
Ignoring the pathetic display, Lion El'Jonson continued on: "Make peace with yourselves. For tonight, the Dark Angels will eradicate your entire gang."
Nodding to one of the Dark Angels standing at his side, he went and took Callum down. And soon as Callum was free, he immediately ran for the door and back to where he came from.
When he had crossed the Bounded Field that surrounded their base, the illusion dropped and there stood Mesa and two of shadow clones.
"Alright, bring out those corpses." Said Mesa to his shadow clones and they obeyed and laid them out in a row as he looked down at them.
Obviously, when all these thugs had crossed the barrier to their base, Mesa had read their minds and knew exactly that these people where the lowest criminal scum there where and that their deaths would benefit people instead of hurt them. But that was not why he had saved their bodies. For when those three gangers came into his hall, he had emulated the 'Primarch aura' that Jasmine and Ophis had described to him using the Mind Stone and Power Stone. And when he had wanted to induce the feeling of fear into them, he realized he could also sense their emotions and realized that he had tapped into another aspect of the Mind Stone's psionic power. Empathic detection and manipulation. And that is where these corpses come into the picture.
As he and his clones went out and killed all those thugs that surrounded their base, he started to run an experiment with them. He felt all of the emotions that they felt like fear, rage and hatred and tried to lock that emotion into the very flesh of his victims after their death and amplify it.
If his hypothesis was correct, he could use these thugs to create an area of densely concentrated negative emotions and lure in the Grimm that way and thus making this Infinity Trail significantly easier.
(Infinity Trial #2 - Day 8 - Grimm counter: 2516)
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