The Lesser One Arc 2 Version 2 Chapter 5: The Long Road

  I apologize for the fact that these are out of order. You can find all the chapters by clicking on the label "The Lesser One Arc 2 Try 2" at the bottom of this post.

Long Road

A man reaches his hand up, covered in blood. Ronald shoots him with a pistol, without even looking in his direction. “I was told I would find the candidate here.” He grins at me.

He is a hugely muscled man, with a short crop of blonde hair. He is wearing sunglasses. His grin widens.

I peek my head out from behind the table barrier. “What do you want with me?”

“Naw, I thought I’d just say hi!” Ronald spits onto the beautiful hardwood floor. “I know you’re the one who everyone has their eye on. I just wanted to see what you look like for myself!”

“You killed all these people!” I wave my hands.

“What, them? They’re just fodder. Stock. They mean nothing.”

“They’re people!”

Mandrake pulls on my arm. “Hush. Don’t try to argue with him.”

Ronald leans on his gun. “Well, how about we have a little chat? Here?”

The door to the restaurant bursts open and policemen and adventurer patrol members fan out into the room. Ronald points his gun at them, sighs, and then calmly steps back onto his helicopter. “We can chat later, lad!” The helicopter flies away and disappears around the corner.

Dozens of policemen search the room, kneeling beside the dead and dying guests.

A detective approaches me. “You’re Markus Red, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Tell me what happened here.”

“It was a terrorist attack.” I shudder. “Someone was after me and killed all these people in an attempt to kidnap me.”

“Here? On the top floor of a skyscraper?”

I shake my head. “He had a helicopter.”

The detective pulls out his radio. “I need an ID on the helicopter that just flew away from the Resdue Building!”

“Copy that.”

The detective put away his radio. “By the way, do you happen to know Barley Smad?”

“I do. He’s the one who helped me out with that whole Wales Portal and mafia thing.”

“Right. I believe this has a connection to you and to organized crime. I’ll get him on board with this as soon as I can. In the meantime, do you think you can come with us to the station and give your witness testimony?”

“Of course.”

“Are these your retainers?” The detective points to Tia, Sebastian, and Madrake.

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“Good. They can also give testimony.”

Mandrake pulls out the black card he had showed me before. “I’d like to talk to your supervisor.”

The detective clears his throat. “I, ah, okay, I’ll allow that.” It seemed that he recognized the card. “Does that card have to do with the attack?”

“In a way, yes.”

The detective swallowed. “Very well then. I shall bring you to the station and have you meet my superior.”

Mandrake and I share a glance, and then we follow the detective to the elevator and take it downstairs. The lobby of the building is filled with paramedics and military police. Everyone is being evacuated. The whole experience reminds me of a movie set.

We follow the detective into a police cruiser. When we get in, the detective speaks.

“My name is Detective Sanders. You may call me Sanders.”

“Okay.” The cruiser is a little crowded with the four of us. I am allowed to sit in front. We drive down to a police station with a view of the Thames. When we arrive, Barley is waiting at the doorway.

“Markus. You’re embroiled in something crazy again, aren’t you?”

I do my best to smile. “Yes. Lots of people died today.”

“It wasn’t your fault, as far as I can tell. All I know is that there’s a terrorist organization that is after you.”

“About right.”

Barley looks at Mandrake. “I recognize you. You were a member of the Deep Blues adventuring team back ten years ago, right?”

Mandrake raises an eyebrow. “I haven’t been recognized in years.”

Barley sniffs. “Well, I’d like to know why you’re carrying around a S-rank clearance card.”

Mandrake chuckles. “There’s a reason why it’s S-ranked. Even that knowledge is not for me to give you.”

Barley sighs. “Okay. Come on in. We have a lot of paperwork to fill out.”

We spend two hours going over the events of the attack, and filling out forms that relate to various official documents.

When we leave the police station, Mandrake rubs his belly. “Since we never did get to eat anything, do you want to get MarkBurgers?”

“It’s a step down,” I shrug, “But I’d eat anything at this point.”

“Good.”

Sebastian calls the limo, and ten minutes later it arrives, being driven by a devil I do not recognize. An elf is in the passenger seat. Both of them look as if they do not like the arrangement. Sebastian clicks his tongue, but says nothing. Tia keeps her arms crossed.

We get into the limo and drive to the nearest MarkBurgers restaurant. It is pretty much empty. We order our food and sit down to eat it.

Just as I am about to put a fry into my mouth, the door bursts open and a number of thugs in leather jackets enter. I don’t want to judge by appearances, so I say nothing.

The leader of the thugs approaches the counter. “Hey, your dues haven’t been paid yet.”

The man behind the counter cowers. “I just work here, sir.”

“Then go call your manager.”

Mandrake wipes ketchup off of his face. “They’re being pretty blatant. Where has law gone in this city?”

The leader of the thugs glares at us. “What are you looking at?”

I stand up. “You want a fight?”

Sebastian shakes his head at me. Tia, however, seems to be itching for a brawl as well.

There are five thugs. They break from the counter and start walking towards us.

Sebastian puts down his burger. Mandrake flicks his hand and fire comes out of it. Tia forms a blade of ice in her fist. I conjure a baseball bat.

Mandrake motions to the man behind the counter. “Go call the police.”

The man shudders. “They’re paid off. They won’t come.”

Mandrake snorts. “Then we’re on our own, boys.”

I try to summon more helpers, but the portal connection is severed. I notice that one of the thugs has a backpack with a suspiciously similar aura to the device that shuts down my portal connection. I sigh.

The thugs charge. I dive behind a glass separator. Sebastian throws balls of smoke at two thugs, surrounding them in acrid billows. They cough and stagger around like drunken men.

A thug peeks around the corner and grins at me. He snaps his fingers and grass shoots from the floor, grabbing me by the legs.

I conjure a weed whacker. The motor fires up, filling the room with its roar. I cut away the grass as fast as it grows.

The grass thug backs away from me. He flicks his hand and tendrils of grass grow from his arm.

I charge the grass thug with my weed whacker. I expect it to do a lot of damage.

A bowling ball flies right in front of me and slams into a table, smashing it. The thug who conjured it grins at me and holds another in his palm.

The grass thug tangles me with more grass than my weed whacker can handle. I drop the device and it sputters on the ground before going dead.

I conjure a rifle. “Stay back!” I have been avoiding lethal force until now. But I’m trapped.

The thug laughs, slapping his hand against his chest. “We’re bulletproof!”

“Then eat lead!” I fire off three shots, being careful to aim for his center mass. I still don’t want any dead men on my hands.

The grass surrounding me freezes, becoming brittle enough to snap. Tia rushes past me and slams into the bowling ball thug, who is still reeling from the direct rifle rounds to his bulletproof vest. She slides underneath him and freezes his legs to the ground. A bowling ball flies past her as she ducks, breaking the glass window of the building.

The leading thug snaps his fingers and everything goes quiet. “Biren will hear of this!”

Tia, Sebastian, and Mandrake form a trio in the middle of the destroyed restaurant.

Mandrake makes a gesture. “Tell Biren that Mandrake is defending this place.”

The thugs back away, leaving through the door. The bowling ball thug is unable to break through his ice lock, however. He struggles but cannot escape.

Mandrake motions to me. “Toss me some rope.”

I conjure some rope and toss it to him.

“And get rid of that gun.”

I pause for a moment, and then realize that, while I have never used the ability before, I can un-conjure anything I create. Just like that katana in the fight with the ninjas. The gun melts into anima goo.

Mandrake grins. “Good. That will make our case a lot better.”

“Where are the police?” I look out the window.

“The thugs said they were paid off.” Mandrake ties the thug with rope. “Even if we bring this thug to the authorities, Biren’s tentacles stretch far, and the worst that will happen is this particular henchman goes to jail and no one else gets prosecuted.”

“I have a name, you know.” The bowling ball thug sniffs. “Jack.”

“Jack, then.” Mandrake looks at him. “You know you’re screwed, right?”

“I’m just a footman. I don’t know anything.”

“We’re not going to torture you. We don’t do that kind of thing here. All I want is some good faith information. If you tell us what you know about your employer, then we’ll let you go free.”

“Man, I don’t know anything, I told you already.”

Mandrake sighs, motioning to the wreck of a restaurant. “Then you’ll take responsibility for this mess. At the very least they can prosecute you for destroying property.”

A single police car pulls up to the restaurant. Two police officers step out.

“Speak of the devil.”

The policemen enter the building and take in the destruction. “Looks like you had a major fight in here.” The shorter officer looks at the thug. “Is this the guy who did it?”

“He was trying to rob the place.” Mandrake points to the thug. “We stopped him. He has a powerful spirit so we had to fight a bit, but we managed to subdue him.”

The two police officers look at each other. “All right, boyo. We’re taking you to the Yard.” They put the thug in cuffs. Tia melts the ice holding him in place, and the police officers drag him away, without even asking me or anyone else any questions.

The man behind the counter peeks from below. “Is it over?”

“It’s over.” I look around the building at the destruction we’ve wrought. “And if you have trouble with insurance, just call Esmex and we can get things sorted out for you.”

“Um, okay.”

Sebastian sits down and continues eating his meal. I shrug, and join him. Mandrake and Tia sit down next, and we finish our food before throwing away the trash and leaving. When we pile back into the limousine, Mandrake leans back. “This is turning out to be a full scale war.”

“With who?”

“Not the Darks, as they aren’t really a whole organization unto themselves. Each Dark does as they please without consulting the others. However, it appears that your appearance as a new candidate has drawn the monsters out of the deep water. All the Darks are converging on this city in order to get a piece of the action.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Defeat them. You can never truly kill a Silverbone, but if you show them who’s boss, then they’ll listen to you and, at the very least, respect you.”

“Then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Mandrake sniffs. “It’s going to be a long road.”

 

6

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