章節 66: Chapter Sixty-Six: Parlor
Shelby was escorted away from a military base and was taken to a forward operations base located in some unknown and unlit place. Shelby had no idea where she was, but one of the soldiers whom escorted her inside walked beside her while still talking to Siran over the phone. Eventually, when they get inside, Shelby comes face to face with two men. One in a Syrian military uniform and the other in a suit with a Kevlar vest over the blazer jacket. "Some of the information has already been relayed to me." The man in the military uniform says. "My name is Commander Al-Aziz. To my left is Sir Al-Sulaiti."
"It's a pleasure meeting such an nice lady." Al-Sulaiti says. Shelby rolls the hood of the cloak off of her head and shows her many mechanical upgrades. "Erm- well... a lady, nonetheless." He adds. "It's still a rather bittersweet surprise to meet a member of The Six Guns."
"I'm not a member of The Six Guns." Shelby corrects. "I'm merely with them, and in this case, their ambassador. Over the phone is the one you're looking for."
"As I've heard." Al-Sulaiti says. "Put him on speaker."
The soldier sets the phone on the table and touches the screen and sets the phone onto speaker mode. "We understand you are the leader of The Six Guns, Siran?" Al-Aziz asks.
"That's me." Siran replies.
"With me, I have a special guest." Al-Aziz. "An introduction will be in order. I am Commander Al-Aziz. The leading officer in this operation and defense against the Israeli invasion. With me I also have Al-Sulaiti. Sir Jassim Fyed Al-Sulaiti. He's my current mercenary I had to hire because your crew was causing trouble. This was quite a mess you made and this man wasn't cheap. Maybe you've heard the name."
"Can't say that I have." Siran replies.
"I-it's for the best, really, Commander." Jassim says. "Best not to show our hands if we're unsure. First, I want to know why you were previously helping Israel and why you claim to want to switch sides."
"Give me a moment." Siran says.
"A moment?" Jassim asks. "A moment for what?"
"Ah- I see now!" Siran says. "Thank you, Holly. Jassim Fyed Al-Sulaiti. Mercenary, wanted war criminal, more importantly, former heir of the royal family of... Qatar?"
"I-uh... How did you find that out so fast?" Jassim asks.
"Are you surprised what our team is capable of?" Siran asks. "Maybe we can use our display of efficiency to our advantage into coming to an agreement?"
"L-look!" Jassim says. "My past isn't important, what matters is the job. I'm here as a direct deterrent to your crew. Now that your crew isn't fighting back, what do we do now? I'm interested in your idea, so let's hear your pitch. After all, you're that demon everyone keeps talking about. Show me what kind of devious ideas you can cook up. Then we'll talk about our agreement."
"Information for information." Siran answers. "Syria has been locked against Israel for so long, I'm sure they have information on who's leading the invasion. Hell, they even may know how and why. But all I need is a who and where. In exchange for that, I'll have note taken of all the moves pit against your team. We'll ask you to amass troops in one location that's well known, have them all build defenses capable of a counter-invasion. But before an invasion, we'll let you know how and when they'll attack. We'll even be sent in after you. Considering you have a mercenary, we can even enlist his help to make our attack on your side believable as we have a small part of our group take out the heads of Israel's invasion and put a stop to the constant attacks. The rest will remain on the battlefield under your care. Rest assure, my crew will not hurt your crew. We will take steps to prevent damage from Israel's military until their leadership in this invasion is successfully dismantled."
"Wow..." Jassim says, impressed. "That is very devious... almost gave me shivers. Say, what's your pay rates?"
"We don't make money from this." Siran answers. "Our money comes from businesses outside of our work as The Six Guns."
"Tch" Jassim says. "After this job is done, I was really interested in seeing more. What do you think Commander?"
"Well, we'd still keep our contract with you for this conflict, just in case." Al-Aziz answers. "But we need something, a commodity to ensure our safety until this is over."
"With all due respect, I could come over there right now with the tech Israel has." Siran says. "If we had wanted to go there to catch you with your pants down, we would've done so already. But, if you feel too uncertain to agree, we can make good on that contract you made with Prince Al-Sulaiti over there."
The Commander slams his right fist on the table as he nervously bites his thumb's fingernail. "Alright, fine. You call a good bluff. We are exhausted, resource-wise, over here. We need all the help we can get. Do that, and we'll remove you and your crew from our country's wanted list. It's the least we can do."
"Please stop with the demon thing too, thank you." Siran says. "Send our ambassador back home. I'll have her write down a burner number for you before she leaves. Use this to contact us and exchange intel. We will keep you up to date. Send us information on all heads in this invasion and we'll have them taken out for you, and exchange information to plan for your safety as much as possible." After saying that, Siran hangs up and the call ends.
"Well, if you can get these off of me now, that would be helpful." Shelby says as she jiggles her wrists and causes metallic jingling noise from the handcuffs.
Several days later, Siran and the others were in the hideout. They were discussing their plans with Syria after Shelby having made contact with the soldiers and successfully setting up a trap. "Looks like we got three targets leading the invasion efforts." Siran says. "Mizrahi is at the bottom of those three as well. Above him is the commanding general, General Yusef Haddad and then the Defense Minister Adam Zohar. Mizrahi will likely be deploying with us but remaining at a safe distance from the conflict, likely wherever they will transport the mechs to. Who wants to take out Mizrahi."
"Me." Rose says as she stands up. "He's insulted me, my home and my husband more than enough. This one is personal."
"I'm going too." Finn adds. "I won't let her go alone. It'll be dangerous."
"Good." Siran says. "Next target, General Haddad. Intel says he's in Nazareth. There's a military F.O.B. (forward operations base) located there near city limits, north-east, close to the border. Any takers?"
"Do they even know I'm traveling with you guys?" Chao asks. "I think if I'm going to tag along and expect you to take me to my daughter, I may as well help somewhere. If word hasn't gotten around that I'm helping your crew, then I may be the best fit. Very few people have seen me around your crew and even then, I only need to disguise myself very little and I'll be unrecognizable. Let me take this one. Even if they notice one of us are missing, it'll be fine. They won't have a name to pull to find out who's missing."
"You don't have to do this if you don't want to." Siran says.
"I'm doing this one." Chao answers.
"Alright then." Siran says. "Then last is the defense minister, Zohar. Holly, I want you on him since he's the longest distance target. We're going to off the operation and make them think all things are going well and I want you to stall all news to their main HQ as much as possible. Don't raise any alarms, but don't let anyone warn them that we turned on them. Keep them in the dark, but feed them just enough information to make them think things are going as planned. Then, I'm going to send in Syria's mercenary. That Qatari prince, Jassim Al-Sulaiti. He's another unknown face. Upon showing any identification he has, it'll seem like he's in Israel on the run from conflicting forces. From there, I'll feed him step by step information on getting inside to stop their head of operations. From there, we just block off Israel's forces and call in for a retreat. We don't need to kill either side, just have everyone book it. Once the dust settles and the realization kicks in, the invasion will have suffered a crippling wound. Egypt will be able to push Israel out safely without fighting and the conflict will likely cool down to another cold war."
"Then the rest of us are going to put on a show?" Haru asks.
"A show, I can do." Jassim answers over the phone.
"The operation starts the day after tomorrow. Make sure to tell us your key positions." Al-Aziz says over the phone.
"Alright." Siran says. "Good to see we're all on board."
"Hey, hey!" Robin rushes towards Zia as her and the three kids get ready to leave with Athena and Thor. "Isn't it a bit early to rush out? Are you guys really leaving to close that stream?"
"We don't have much time." Zia argues. "Any day now, all of the plants and people are going to start choking and dying one after another. Now I'm not confident in my abilities with sealing magic, but Silas has been picking it up faster than me. I'm just glad I could help coach him in controlling magic, which helped him understand sealing magic a little better. The kid really is a genius."
"Well, he is yours and Siran's kid." Robin adds. "But I know when you leave... you're also planning on finding McNamara."
"Yeah, I am." Zia says sternly.
"Don't underestimate him." Robin warns. "Assume he is on my father's level or worse. He's much stronger and much more twisted than he looks."
"I'll keep that in mind." Zia says as she starts to walk off.
Robins scoffs, then says to himself "What's with those two? Her and Siran are always so hard headed. It pisses me off."
"Worrying too much, aren't you?" Benjie asks. "You know, you're usually quieter than this." Robin sighs, then walks past Benjie. "Hey, I know you're worried about them, and that you care about them."
"They piss me off!" Robin says. "That's why I never talk around them! If you have nothing nice to say-"
"Or maybe it's because you're not good at saying nice things?" Benjie asks. Robin stops walking but refuses to turn around and face Benjie. "Look, all I'm saying is, it takes strength to say and do the right things. Kindness isn't a weakness, you know? Maybe it was because you're not used to vocalizing because you never had someone to vocalize with?" Robin shakes his head a little and walks away. "And he says the other two are a pain in the ass?" Benjie says to himself. "He acts just like Siran sometimes... trapping pain inside like that and acting all headstrong. He needs to put himself out there more. With him looking so similar to Siran too, you'd think the two were brothers or something."
"So, back to the stream in Omnium Guild?" Dana asks.
"Yes." Zia insists. "We need to close the one in enemy territory. Silas will be focusing on sealing that stream and I'll be there for protection."
"I guess it's as good of a start as any, really." Athena adds unenthusiastically. "Just so long as we get this rolling. We need progress done now or everything will be over."
"To Omnium Guild then." Thor replies. The six of them all leave in an armored van this time. They travel for a few hours straight to Omnium Guild at a high speed, wasting no time to close the nearest stream. As they travel, Thor asks "So now that Silas is... well, alive... does that mean laibah will once again start to exist here?"
"Well... all of that depends." Dana says. "I wouldn't count on Silas to make Zia any grandchildren. The guy is more shy than a shellfish."
"Look, I..." Silas says then thinks for a moment. "That's just mean, Dana."
"You guys are thinking about all the wrong things." Athena says. "We have a job to do here."
"Besides, I'm sure Silas will be just fine." Zia says.
"Not helpful, mom." Silas argues. "It is not a good look going to save the world and having mommy try to safeguard my feelings. Besides, I'm not worried about that right now. I'm focusing on all the things I just had to go through recently."
"Yeah, like the fox form thing." Carl says. "By the way, you could shapeshift into a form that looks like your fathers like... demon form, can't you?"
"He's not a demon." Silas says. "And yeah, what of it?"
"Well... why?" Carl asks.
"I'm pretty sure that was a form projected into my mind from the shard of Chronos." Silas says. "He tried taking over me. I guess it would make sense that he'd be able to influence my forms."
"Into looking like your father?" Carl asks.
"No, that's a good point." Dana adds.
"Well, yeah, like my father." Silas answers. "If what he wanted was his own god slayer, then why not make it look like the most well known god slayer as a taunt, after taking over his own son? He could even use the guise to spread misinformation. He could've had full control over the global conflict at that point. Hell, probably could've defanged my father at that."
"Okay..." Dana replies. "Then how did your father get that form?"
"I can answer that one." Zia replies. "It isn't an alternate form. That's his normal form now. That's just his true form and how he looks. But it was a form bestowed on him via a curse from Naris. Naris could control endo, he also had some of the shards of Gaia with him that caused him to be able to escape containment. With that innate ability for nature, he likely used endo to alternate Siran's appearance permanently, resulting in the form you guys so lovingly called a demon form. The appearance you're used to, and most people mistake as his normal appearance is his old appearance based on how he used to look before the curse. He uses shapeshifting magic perpetually to maintain it, even when sleeping. It takes constant focus and a constant flow of magic to maintain. Siran appearing in his normal form is weaker than his other form because he's constantly using endo to maintain his appearance. But when he drops the shapeshifting spell and shows his true form, he has more endo to use and can focus more on attacks. It's like he's just constantly pushing himself to maintain a presentable appearance for everyone around him."
"Whoaaa, so... he just does that all day everyday?" Carl asks.
"I'm afraid so." Zia answers. "I feel bad for him. It sounds exhausting, and I've told him he doesn't have to anymore. But he insists that it's better this way."
"Ishmael..." Athena asks herself, "What the hell has he been going through on this Earth?"
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