Chapter Thirteen: The Spark of Reformation, Dawn of the Crimson Tengu Ravens!

After ensuring that the Valro Burrow's ruins were not only clear of radiation, but had no other surprises, be they monsters, crazed, irradiated wandering bums, or unstable buildings, Claire was brought in. After the recently-released inmate of Rycroft Asylum performed a survey of her own on the area, Richard realized that the first phase of his plan had been completed, and, for better or worse, it was time to move to the next step. As such, he had Dan contact the rest of the Hammer Wolves, and about an hour later all of Dan's comrades arrived in their various transports.

It seemed Richard's new "doorstop" did fairly well in terms of giving the impression he was aiming for: when the rest of the Hammer Wolves rounded the corner to see the bloody, twisted, and severed head of the kraidlon mounted right in front of the entrance, the unarmed ones dove for cover, and those who had brought firearms quickly whipped them out. One even discharged a shot into it as they backpedaled.

Dan, the only one who hadn't reacted, and who remained in the lead, let out a laugh. "Easy, boys; it's good and dead—helped kill it myself. Beats a deer head, don't yah think?"

"Damn, Nicholson…." Troy sounded impressed as he approached it. "First Rycroft, then this big lizard? That's one hardcore day. I can't believe you made me sit out on it…."

"Relax, McGuire," Dan answered as he once again moved on, leading the way past the head and into the larger cavern beyond. "I'm guessing you'll get your chance soon enough."

As soon as the group passed the head and entered into the remains of the borough —a little less intact since the Kanjiu had had its way with it— they all looked rather awed at the sight before them. A few flares had been tossed around, which, while merely candles in the dark compared to the size of the ruins, still helped give a good feel for the size and scale of the place. Even with the new damage, a good part of it was still standing; enough to give an impression of its former glory, at any rate.

"I got to hand it to Requiem…" Zach spoke up as he surveyed the standing buildings. "I thought he was nuts, saying he could blow away the radiation in here…but, since your teeth and hair ain't falling out, I guess I stand corrected. But why's he letting us in on it?"

"Wants to recruit us for something. For what, I got no idea; he's not giving a straight answer—and I haven't committed to anything either," Dan responded. "He says part of it involves giving Dickberry some payback. Between that and Rycroft, it's enough for me to hear him out."

After a few minutes, the group wandered down into the streets of the ruins and made their way back to a mostly-intact hotel. The gang got another shock when they saw the great, steaming, odoriferous, and still-bleeding carcass of the kraidlon lying there. Everyone gave it a wide berth.

While they were still walking down the street to it, there was some flickering, before half of the lights, scattered in random patterns of broken-or-intact all over and throughout the structure, came on: enough light to actually see the outline of the hotel and, beyond it, the main foyer. As they closed the rest of the distance, the doors were propped open, revealing the decaying lobby inside, and the shadowed form of Jade Hawk stepped out.

"Right this way, ladies…and, if you must, gentlemen," he said with a mocking gesture, imitating a hotel doorman.

Dan looked up over the lit-up building and gave a nod. "You've been a couple of busy birds, haven't you? Already got the lights working."

"Eh, we lucked out," Voltaire answered as he rose from his bow. "The backup generator was still mostly intact; all it needed was a tune-up, a few replacements, and maybe a kick in the side for good measure. So, then…" He looked out over the group. "…are these all the recruits?"

"Think of us as 'dudes willing to sit in on a lecture', man," Troy answered, crassly spitting on the ground. "Ain't none of us signed up on no recruit sheet, last I checked."

A few of the others snickered at this; Voltaire, on his part, didn't much care for the spit now on the ground. "I see," he answered after a moment. "Well, no sense waiting; this hotel has its own miniature theater, and I felt that would be the best place for an address, so, if you'll follow me…."

Turning about, his long coat fluttering up a bit in the process, Voltaire began to lead the way inside. Dan beckoned onward, readily falling in behind him. The others exchanged a few glances, but ended up following.

Some of the lights had shattered in the fall, but there were still enough to look about and find their way through the halls, past the lobby, and towards the various conference centers and special-purpose rooms in the back. Voltaire led them straight to the only one that was open, and gestured inside.

As they began to file in, Zach blinked and looked about a bit. "You know…shouldn't there be skeletons lying around, from everyone who got nuked when this place went 'boom'?"

"What do you think Tubby, out there, was munching on after he woke up?" Dan asked with a shrug.

The theater looked a bit on the old side, but, considering the rest of the Burrow, that made sense. It was more intact and less dusty than the rest of the place; the rooms had to have been shut and covered when the blast occurred, leaving most of it immune to the ravages of time, at least until now.

The seat cushions were intact, and weren't even that dirty; even the lights seemed to all be working, and working well. Just like back when the theater was in operation, the house and floor lights were dimmed, but sconces lit up various pictures of Los Midas from earlier days. Voltaire readily went down the main aisle, towards the front, seeming to be indicating for them to follow.

Dan nearly spoke up that most of the boys would prefer to lounge in the back, as they normally did, before spotting someone already in the front leftmost chair. Claire was lounging back, eating an ice cream cone, with Alphonse seated at her side like a normal hound.

The gang leader couldn't help but laugh. "You're still packing on the sweets? You're going to be a balloon by the end of the week, girl."

"Oh, shut up!" the woman lashed back, snapping around and giving him a glare. "I'll get back to a normal diet once I've caught up on all the treats I've missed out on!"

Troy happened to notice the look as well as the hair and getup, and snickered. "Is this the chick that helped y'all break out? Yeah, from the looks of her, I'd say she comes from a nuthouse…."

Claire immediately snapped to the big man. "And you look like you belong in a zoo, and smell like what the monkeys fling at you." She spat. "I've been locked up for years; what's your excuse for not showering?"

Troy's own smug grin faded into a frown of his own. "Sounds like you've been locked up so long, you forgot to appreciate a real man." He took a step forward as he put a hand on his belt. "Maybe I oughta teach you how…."

Alphonse began to get up as Claire tightened her own fist. Before it could get any farther, however, Tony suddenly stepped forward, and put himself between the two.

"Cool it, Troy—if not for her, Jess would have been toast, me and Eloy would still be tripping, and they could've spread what was left of Zach's brain on a piece of toast like freaking jam."

"We didn't come all this way to start a fight, man," Dan threw in quickly.

Troy continued to bluster, not looking like he would let the matter go, but he didn't advance any further, crossing his arms instead. One of the gang members leaned over and whispered to another, wondering how Claire got that ice cream cone, and if there were any more. As for Dan, seeing the matter was done, for now, he turned to her: "So, you part of the presentation?"

"Nope—just here to watch with the rest of you," she casually replied, instantly becoming easy-going and good-natured again, much as she had at the guest house. "He said he'd explain everything when everyone was together."

"Indeed I did—and since that time is now, the waiting is at an end."

The metallic voice got everyone's attention, directing them up towards the stage. There wasn't anything on it that seemed to stand out, except for a panel of some sort that Dan and the others had assumed was for stage direction when there'd be an actual production…but at that moment, it revealed itself to be mounted on a swivel, and spun about to reveal some sort of plastic prop throne.

Seated on it, leaning a bit on one arm, was Requiem, still in full regalia and red lenses blazing. His entrance, if nothing else, served to get the attention of the room, and he proceeded to rise from his seat.

"Welcome to my 'kingdom'; it's small, but it is mine notwithstanding."

The gang members stared at this sight with blank looks; a few of them had their jaws hanging slightly. Two were working hard to stifle chuckles. Considering how quiet the room was now, it was easy to hear when one of them muttered, "What's he going to do next—pull a rabbit out of a hat?"

Troy was the other chuckling one. "All right, Requiem," he spoke up after a moment. "You proved you're legit, helped our boys twice in one night, and, on top of all that, cleaned this toxic-waste dump up to carve out a territory of your own. So, what now? We all know no one does anything for free."

The armored man began to advance along the stage, moving toward the edge. "That depends on you all. Yes, I hope for payment in return for what I did, but I don't need money from you. I need your help—help to ensure that what happened to you does not happen again."

Dan raised an eyebrow. "I thought you handled that, taking out Salinger—or do you mean Dick, too? Or who he's with now?"

"I want to make him pay as well, yes, but that's not sufficient," Richard answered as he leapt down from the lip of the stage and clicked onto the floor before the others. "People like him and Salinger are merely symptoms of a disease—parasites feeding on the leftover carcasses. I want to go farther and deeper. I want the ones who caused Los Midas to get to the point where a law officer can assault an innocent man, throw him in a rat's cage to be treated as human refuse, and have everyone treat it as 'just another day'. Salinger, Booker, and countless others like them flourish because people are so accustomed to corruption, they don't expect anything better."

Troy snorted. "So what's your plan? You want to go after every criminal and crooked bigwig in the city, and beat 'em to death? Well, hell, I love a good fight, but even I know when I'm in for an uneven whopping. You might be good enough to take out one or two of the little mob bosses, but the big ones'll just move into the territories the next day, and they'll eventually get word of it, and leave you sleeping with the fishes when you start making yourself a nuisance."

"You're right in saying going about to each one individually will amount to nothing," Requiem answered. "But I don't want that. I want to strike the heart of what caused not only Los Midas, but the rest of the world as well, to decay to this point."

This caused a small amount of puzzlement among the group, making them silent momentarily. Zach reached up and scratched his head. "So…you want the man who let this entire deal slide? As in King Andross? Well, shoot, man…doesn't matter if it's his fault; that's suicide!"

"I don't mean to go after King Andross Zilos," Richard retorted. "He may be a factor in why Los Midas, and possibly the entire Aurino Republic, has been corrupted, but he's not the primary reason. I found out someone is manipulating him, making him blind to the corruption that's grown steadily more rampant in his realm, and causing people like all of you to suffer for it."

Dan seemed to be looking at this with a rather analytical stare; he hadn't forgotten who he suspected Requiem was at this point, and what that meant his connection probably was to Andross Zilos. After a minute, he laughed. "Think you can be a little more vague with your conspiracy theory, man? I don't suppose you got a name, do you?"

Richard's hands audibly tightened into fists, the metal groaning a bit; his tone grew sharper, angrier: "Alec Steel. He's a lobbyist from the BMS Corporation, and he's one such man. I don't know all involved, but he's spreading misinformation for their gain. Any of you remember last week's story about Zaylor?"

Most of the gang members gave Richard blank looks; they weren't the type that paid attention to any local news beyond sporting events, after all, much less every little thing that happened on a national scale. Dan himself looked them over for someone who could answer before he turned back to Richard.

"Yeah, I heard that news story—what about it?"

"The entire story was a sham. The reports called them 'terrorists' working with the Rakthia Empire to destroy that power plant. The truth is, the BMS Corporation and the Aurino Kingdom purposely seized as much land and rights from the people as possible to drive them to the point where they had no choice but to revolt or lose everything—then the Magna Centurions would be able to come in, put them down, and seize whatever they had left, without any legit cause whatsoever."

"Assuming you somehow magically know this when no one else does…" Troy snorted, "…why the hell should we care?"

Richard only seemed to grow more incensed. "Because this is just the beginning; that's why!" he actually shouted, momentarily losing his temper. He paused, taking a deep breath and becoming more measured once more. "Think about it: if the Magna Centurions have degenerated to the point of attack dogs who simply move in, destroy whatever is in the way of those who command them, and then whitewash it…it's only a matter of time before they do the same to everyone. And they'll start with those most people don't look twice at."

"And all of this isn't because the nation is run by greedy, political bastards, it's because of some shadowy organization 'they' don't want you to know about…." Dan narrowed his eyes. "Think I was right about the tinfoil under your mask…."

"Actually," Claire suddenly spoke up, tapping a finger against her cheek, "he might be onto something."

All eyes turned to her. The woman shifted slightly, suddenly realizing she was the focus of attention now, then finally gave a shrug. "Well…I don't know about the whole Aurino government or anything, but just about every time I was around Salinger in the past year, he was talking about his new employers; it seemed like everything he did that wasn't for Professor Fraction was for them. From the sound of it, they were involved in some heavy stuff in this town—nationwide, even."

Zach moistened his lips and raised his hand, snapping his fingers. "Come to think it, right before you guys busted me out of there, he said something about an 'Ibis Corps'…."

Voltaire looked up a bit at that. "Ibis Corps?"

Dan looked at him. "You know them?"

He gave a shrug. "Not really—not even sure they exist; no one is. If they do exist, they're one of those private military companies. Essentially mercs, but with more order, and higher costs. Some say they're as ruthless and swift as demons from hell when in battle, even by magical standards; other rumors say no one has ever seen them and lived to describe them in action…." Immediately, he snickered. "…so, obviously, one of those two is lying."

"Whatever group Salinger was working with is real enough, I'll tell you that," Claire answered, "Or Salinger belonged in a cell next to me. Well, he did anyways, but you get the idea."

Dan chuckled a bit, and looked back to Requiem. "All right, so you might be onto something. Still, what are we going to do about it? None of us here know any more than you do, it looks like."

Richard looked the gang leader in the eye. "I may have power, but I'm no superman, and I can't be everywhere and look everywhere; I don't think any one man can get to the bottom of this. I want you to help me uncover this group, and everyone involved with it."

"In short, you need toadies," Troy coldly reacted. "If you're not in it for cash, what's in it for us to risk our necks going against professional killers?"

"Your leader told me that the whole reason you all joined the Hammer Wolves in the first place was because you had no one else in this world," the young man answered. "That it had grown into such a twisted and miserable place for you that all you had was each other now.

"I thought you would desire to do more than just hang on, day after day. To change a world that sees you as nuisances to eliminate as soon as they can get you in a spot with no cameras and no witnesses. That you'd want an improvement for yourselves."

"You know…" Dan spoke up, cracking his knuckles a bit. "…for a moment, you really sounded like Dickberry."

Richard was silent at that. Beneath his mask, he registered a bit of surprise.

"You see, he wanted us to change, too. Wanted us to 'be more'," the man went on. "And look how that ended up! Me and my boys have a good thing going."

"What 'good thing' would that be?" Richard coldly queried. "The one where the police have you wanted for crimes you didn't commit, or the one that had your comrades branded incurably insane for the sake of supplying a madman's research?"

Now it was Dan's turn to be silent; Troy's face flushed a bit, and several of the other gang members looked the same. They knew it was true.

"Things change, Dan. You know as well as I do that you can't go back to where you were; it's not my fault, it's not your fault, but that's the way it is. You had to assault and even kill officers to free your friends. Officers that you and I both know were corrupt, but that the world sees as heroes and martyrs. They won't forget that anytime soon. You'll have to evolve."

The man grimaced. "And our only option to survive is to follow you, is that right?"

Richard crossed his arms. "Unless you have any better alternatives, I think you should accept my option as the best course you can take. Join me in forming a new order."

Dan actually blinked a bit at that; some surprise went over the others' faces as well. Zach stared in a bit of disbelief. "Wait…this whole thing…was just because you wanted to form your own gang?"

"No, not a gang," Richard immediately answered, "An order. One that stands for justice."

The gang leader was quiet for a moment, again seeming to peer behind the mask to who he thought was on the other side. "Only one other gang I know of goes around calling themselves 'an order of justice'. You wanting to form your own branch of the Magna Centurions, Requiem?"

"The Magna Centurions aren't doing their job," the masked man responded. "Someone has to. If they've become the attack dogs for corruption, then I want us to be the true version. We may not be as powerful, or have as much influence, but this city needs what that represents more than ever."

Claire was eying him as carefully as the others at this point, but she seemed to at least be more intrigued than most of them. "So, what would you plan to call this group of yours? 'Requiem Rangers'? 'Birds of Prey'? 'Magna Centurions Southwest'?"

Richard slowly took in a deep breath, looking around the room at the pictures for a moment.

"How many of you know what a Tengu warrior was?"

The room was littered with vacant expressions, save one: Voltaire smirked and chuckled. While he stifled it, it was still audible over the glaring silence.

"In ancient history, the time of Mavlos, Zenjyu, and all the other primordial sages of the First Age, Tengu were said to be the demonic spirits of those who died unjustly. Tengu demons were more or less entities of wrath; beings who lashed out at any that wronged them with a venomous rage and ferocious fervor. They were some of the most vengeful and terrifying demons in the Dark Age.

"Now, how many of you know what ravens are?"

There were a few more hands up this time.

"There are a lot of things to know about ravens, but what is key is that they are intelligent, wise, and stealthy creatures, that always strike when and where their prey least expect," Richard continued. "I do not want just another group of gangsters on the street, out for their own profit or amusement—I want an order to terrorize the corrupt, no matter what station they have in life, regardless of whether their motive is greed, hate, or an ideology; I want to strike unseen, bringing only vengeance and leaving only blood in my wake. Hence, the name of the order will be the Crimson Tengu Ravens."

By now, the heaviness of Richard's voice and the way he spoke the last part, taking on a more homicidal tone, had left the gang silent once again. The name was rather awkward, but no one laughed—especially since he wasn't referring to this as a 'gang', or 'group', but an 'order', almost with a religious reverence about it. After a time, Troy, his mouth hanging at this point, broke the silence.

"Is this a joke!? Are we 'bout to get pranked? Because if we are, I'm gonna—"

"I don't think he's joking, dude," Dan cut him off, his own look having turned rather serious at this point. He seemed unnerved as well, but, unlike the others, this seemed to be rubbing him the wrong way. "Name aside …which, I'll admit, ain't the worst I've ever heard… in spite of all you've done for us, Requiem, I'm not sure I like you enough to die for a crackpot cause."

"I don't want your lives; just your skills," Richard answered. "I swear I won't ask anyone to do something I'm not willing to put myself at the head of."

"And what makes you think I'm willing to follow you into the jaws of death, whether you're at the head or the tail?" Dan answered. "Or at any cause that you're selling? You want us to start going on a killing spree of everyone and everything in this town and country that stinks of corruption. That's stupidity at best, and insanity at worst.

"And for what? Some bright and shining nutty utopia, where everyone's free, and it's all sunshine and rainbows? 'Crimson Tengu Ravens' nothing—terrorists, Requiem. You want us to become terrorists. Murdering terrorists who make enemies of everyone on both sides of the law, and therefore have everyone putting our heads on a chopping block."

"You're already enemies of 'everyone on both sides of the law'; what do you have to lose?"

"Besides our lives?" Dan snickered with an amused look. "Oh, not much." He said no more for a few moments, looking Richard over. The armored man didn't change; he seemed to be waiting for an answer.

Finally, he gave a light shrug. "Eh…better than hiding. I don't know just how much you expect to carry on the whole 'justice' thing, but at least you're honest about your limits. You do seem to know what you're talking about, and I like the sound of being on the offensive."

Just about everyone gave Dan a shocked look at that; some of them looked borderline horrified, or like they thought their leader had gone nuts.

"Are you out of your fu…. Come on, man!" Troy bellowed. "The dude's an anarchist in a mask! Why the hell do you want to trust someone who won't even show his face!?"

"Isn't it obvious why I'm masked?" Richard responded for him. "Knowing my identity would cause problems."

Troy snapped back, "Well, not knowing your identity is causing me problems."

"What is behind my armor isn't important. What is important is what I do. All that matters is that I am an avatar of change; that I bring the sinners of this city who think they're beyond the wrath of justice their Requiem."

"You're a goddamn lunatic, is what you are," the big man retorted. "Ain't no sane person rambles about crap like that, talking like they're a damn god or something—"

"You can choose to keep doing what you've always done, and getting what you've always got, 'settling' for this city and this world exactly like everyone else in this city does, every day of their lives…" Richard spoke more sharply now, both to him and to everyone else. "…or, you can choose to try and make the impossible reality, and to do something to change things forever. Would you rather fight the rest of your lives to be the 'top dog' and hold that position, or break down the walls of the pound?"

The gang hesitated again, softening more this time, as some of their unease faded.

Until now, the only pride many of them had ever felt was being a part of the Hammer Wolves gang; that was what gave them their sense of value and worth. the rest of the time, they were nothing, and while most of them still cared more about their own success and advancement than anything else, the idea of being more than 'just another gang'; of actually effecting a permanent change on the city and the world; of leaving a legacy such as that behind…it held some appeal. Dan himself rubbed his mouth and chin momentarily, musing over that last part the longest of all.

"All right," he finally stated, more definitively. "I won't say I don't think you're a nut just yet, but at this point, I owe you enough to give this Crimson-Tengu-Raven-Whatevers thing a test drive. I'm onboard as an interim member, until I see what you've got."

Zach inhaled and held his breath a moment, but finally nodded. "I'll give this a shot, Requiem, so long as Dan's onboard."

Others began to consent as well, one after another, seeming to gain momentum. Troy held out, although at this point he had calmed quite a bit. He looked over the rest of the gang, seeing them all signing up and himself quickly becoming the odd man out. After a minute, he seemed to reconsider, and looked back to Requiem.

"I say 'yes' to this, I'm gonna get to bust the heads of every big gang in town, right?"

That wasn't exactly the biggest selling point Richard had been pushing, but it was also the truth. He nodded.

Troy grinned in a way that was almost twisted. "What the hell—it may be crazy, but it sounds like the fun kind. I'm in."

With Troy and Dan both on board, it didn't take long for the rest of the undecided gangsters to go ahead and voice their consent. Richard looked out over them for a bit, looking at the stragglers, and then to Claire.

"What about you?"

"If we're going to be 'rooting out corruption', or whatever, what does that mean we're going to do about Fraction?"

Richard took in a deep breath. "If he's done what you say he's done, then we'll go after him, too."

The woman slouched back a bit. "I knew getting revenge wouldn't be easy, but if there's anything I learned from the asylum, it's patience. I'll help you guys until we whack him; after that, all bets are off. A shadowy violence spree sounds kind of fun—sounds like more fun than constantly being on the run, at least. "

He nodded back, and then looked out to the others. At this point, they were all looking expectantly back at him. After a moment, he held up a hand. "In that case, I thank you all for becoming the first of the Crimson Tengu Ravens. I solemnly swear to you that the spark we light here tonight will consume Los Midas, if not this entire nation, in the fires of vengeance and reforma—"

"We said we're onboard—stop making me regret it!" Dan cut him off with a half-snort. "What I really want to know is if you have any solid ideas, or just more recruitment sermons."

Richard forced himself to chuckle a bit at that, though he was turning a little red beneath the mask in embarrassment, but he quickly recovered from it. "Actually," he answered as he lowered his hand, "I already have an idea for our first official operation."

Hector blinked at that. "…For real? Wait—what would you have done if we said 'no'?"

"Done it myself, if I had to," the young man simply answered. "This isn't the most vital mission, but I'd like to do it anyways, to see how we work as a unit. How familiar are you all with the Hydra Wyverns?"

Troy gave a gruff snort. "Bunch of immigrant mud-diggers thinking they're going to take Los Midas back for their homeland; weakling Jiodisans that got nothing without their weapons and mages."

"We rumbled with them every now and then," Dan added. "Only reason they ever gained an inch of ground was when they pulled a fast one when I wasn't there."

Voltaire cleared his throat, gaining the room's attention. "Regardless of what you feel about them, they do have a bigger reputation than your gang did, if only due to notoriety; violence, extortion, various forms of trafficking…and they're getting bolder in recent weeks. Requiem and I figured they could use some…'extreme humbling'."

The man reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small cube: a hologram projector. He turned to the stage where Requiem had emerged, placed it on the edge, and tapped it. Immediately, it shot a small laser out into the air, which rapidly widened and formed the three dimensional details of the entire city of Los Midas. From there, he raised his hand and made a few gestures, causing the view to zoom in on the casino district; the so-called "Lucky Borough".

"I keep an ear on MPCD police spammers. The latest report is that there have been increasing numbers of assaults by Hydra Wyvern gang members; more than a dozen people have gone missing and haven't turned up again—all of them poverty-stricken, and many of them targeted right after blowing their bank accounts in the casinos and being kicked out. Since most don't have a dime to their name, NES doesn't even bother to report on the crimes."

"In short, the Hydra Wyverns are getting cocky enough to believe that, so long as someone is low enough in life, they can do as they wish to them and remain untouched," Richard added as his right hand clenched into a fist. "That alone would make them ripe for a behavior correction, but better reason still is the rumors in recent weeks that they have been making deals with arms smugglers, some of them face-to-face. It might be the same group that was dealing with Salinger, or the group that your former comrade was said to be conducting deals with."

Dan looked over the area a bit before he rotated his wrist and nodded. "All right, sounds fine to me; the first part alone makes these bastards the kind of group I like kicking around."

"Most —if not all— of you have been in fights before, but I'll need you to follow my instructions once this mission begins," Richard went on, elevating his voice a bit more. This caused a number of glances, some of them hurt or insulted, towards him, but he continued, "Our own lives won't be all that's at stake here; if these people are involved in human trafficking, there'll be innocents at risk, as well as lots of people they can use as living shields. So, first, I'll only need the six of you that are the fastest and most ready for a fight; the rest of you can settle into this place for now."

Most of the gang looked back strangely at Richard. "What…that's it?" Zach asked. "—No initiation ritual, or anything like that?"

The young man paused. Even their own gang had an initiation, and he had just sold this as something bigger than a gang with a higher purpose. He supposed this was kind of letting them in easily, but he hadn't really thought about it that much; most of his effort had been keyed toward getting them onboard in the first place.

"Like I said, this isn't a cult; you're fine as you are, so long as you know the mission plan well," he answered, speaking as steadily as he could.

That only seemed to make the gang members look more uncertain than before. Hector gave a shrug. "So…no official rules? No spell? No oath? Not even a costume, or armor like yours?"

Several members murmured their agreement with this, and nodded, then looked expectantly back to Richard. Underneath his mask, he began to sweat a little: he realized he should have considered what would happen a bit further ahead, after getting them all on-board. He glanced to Voltaire, but the man looked a bit flustered himself. The others, Claire, and even Alphonse joined in staring at him expectantly. He felt his stomach tying into a knot under this sudden pressure; it was fine when he was trying to be bold and make speeches, or come off as a 'spirit of vengeance', but for common stuff like this?

Taking a moment to inhale deeply, he calmed himself and answered, "Yes, well…unfortunately, my armor is custom-made, and hard to replicate. However, I'll ensure you are all provided with armor, face masks, firearms, and any other basic gear before any of you go on a mission.

"As far as any techniques…I'm not a teacher, but when the time presents the need for additional skills, I'll try to offer basic lessons. As far as rules, it's fairly simple: don't tell anyone outside of here who or what the Crimson Tengu Ravens are. Only contact family and friends over a secure channel. Only kill the targets; no innocents.

"Finally, and I think this is obvious, but don't do anything stupid." His tone dropped. "Like trying to rob someone, or extorting anyone behind my back. If I find out you sin in the name of this order, I swear, you'll wish that I would just merely kill you, as opposed to what I will put you through." His voice picked up a bit afterward. "I'll write these down officially later, but I would hope these would be simple enough to follow for now. Do you have any more questions?"

"Yeah, how about something to eat?" Troy blurted out. "Can't bust heads on an empty stomach."

Voltaire sighed a bit as he scratched under his nose. "Actually, we did have a plate of raven-shaped cookies as a welcome present, but someone apparently never learned the rule 'just take one'…."

He gave a look to Claire, who let out a tiny belch. The rest of the gang gave sighs or grunts of disgust, while she simply flicked her bangs back. "Aw—they weren't even that big to begin with…."

Richard saw the discord in the room spreading; he sighed, and threw out a flat, "I suppose it's never good to do anything on an empty stomach, if it can be avoided. All right, how about we order pizza for everyone, and then we will start the mission?"

As the third prince saw his recently appointed crew unleash a chorus of agreement, he crossed his arms. "Then so it shall be. We're still setting up a network of warp pipe spells to easily slip into key parts of Los Midas. Since it's our first mission, I'll let you all decide where to order from."

Dan grinned before getting in front of his friends and bellowing out, "Now that's what I'm talking about! Come on, let's make a trip to Paul's Pizza Dune, eh, guys?"

Troy snarled in disgust, "Ah, hell no! Those guys can't make a slice to save their life! Just because you ate there before you got lucky does not make it a good store, Nicholson!"

Dan formed a wide grin as he lashed back, "Eh—what are you talking about, Troy? Just because you got sick the next day, you think it's cursed? Forget about it; you didn't even give it a shot! What, did you want to order from Mario's Hyper Pizza Land? We'll be waiting all night before we get our food! Seriously, the cooks there have been so lazy lately—they're just riding on their legacy, and don't try at all!"

Richard watched the former Hammer Wolves suddenly devolve into heated arguments over food, and, as the leader of the recently-forged order saw Troy and Dan on the verge of tackling each other, the young man slouched back onto the plastic throne, muttering to himself, "I knew it would take some time before this order got into its groove, but this might be even trickier than I thought…."

To top it off, Greymont suddenly cut in, …Hey, Boss, can I have some of this 'pizza' stuff? —Sounds tastier than that kraidlon meat….

At that point Richard really did break down, and placed a hand on his face.

---

To the new leader's relief, the group in front of him at last came to the decision of getting pizza from Paul's Pizza Dune, and, after a brief planning period, Requiem entrusted Hector and Troy with fedoras and trench coats so they could retrieve the food without hassle.

Voltaire was even able to wrangle out some light disguises, so they didn't stand out too much, although at this time of night they had the advantages of both darkness and less people being out-and-about; Richard was glad for that, because he really didn't want to waste too much time on something as trivial as how to feed everyone. He and Voltaire spent the bulk of the waiting time setting up the warp network, and Dan and the others made themselves at home.

The place needed more than a little work if it was to be habitable without constantly needing to go out for supplies, but it seemed, so long as they were residing here, the former Hammer Wolves were intent on making it a more permanently habitable residence.

The group members for the first 'official' mission were selected, and the others were delegated responsibilities and tasks to make the place more livable while the team was gone, such as housekeeping duties and repairs. By the time the pizza had been brought, they had already cleaned out a good section of the old dining hall in the hotel lobby in which to enjoy their order's first meal.

As they finished, Dan gave the roster for this mission: aside from him, Tony was the only other one who was coming along from the Rycroft group: it seemed his temporary incapacitation had only left him eager to make up for it. Richard didn't mind that much, in spite of his only recently recovering from the terror toxin; he was much more concerned with the fact that Troy was going to come on this one.

Dan had told him, privately, that if they left the big guy out of another mission so soon after snubbing him the first time, they'd never hear the end of it, and that Troy had promised he'd "behave". Reluctantly, Richard had consented.

Setting up too many warp points into the city was ill-advised—each new one would be another opportunity for someone to stumble upon it, after all. Nevertheless, Voltaire was able to get one set up in an innocuous area within the Lucky Borough—close enough for their purposes, at least. Some of the gang was a bit reluctant to step into the admittedly unsettling-looking warp gate, but they did so anyways.

They soon found themselves landed deep in the more glamorous and glitzy part of Los Midas. Even this late at night, all of the bright lights, flashing colors, scrolling marquees, and advertising holograms were running full-bore. In spite of common beliefs on the subject of stealth, the illumination actually provided better cover than a moonless night to hide from the pedestrians and bums still out—it served as a distraction.

Nevertheless, Richard started things off by taking them to the top of the nearest building with roof access: he had found that most people didn't look at the roofs for vigilantes, and while he was unusual in having enough strength to cross the more serious gaps between buildings, in this part of town the structures were spaced close enough together that it wouldn't be a problem for any of them—he had brought the most athletic members of the group, after all. By venturing forward around advertisements and behind holograms on one roof after another, it didn't take more than a minute or two to reach the most famous part of Los Midas: the "Midas Strip".

While this entire district was rather flashy and opulent, this section was in a league of its own. It almost looked as if it was made of gold, silver, and marble, between the lights, style, and extravagance; even the most basic casinos looked like a five-star resort combined with a palace. The basic garbage cans along the street looked like they cost as much as low-end hovercars.

An entire street that seemed to have the sole purpose of entertaining the rich and the fortunate, there wasn't a single person wearing a single item from a chain store or an outlet; everything they wore was flash, exotic, and tailored, even on those just lounging on a bench, to say nothing of those riding in limos or having cocktails in outdoor lounges.

Richard couldn't help but snort as they passed. "An area where the privileged flaunt their power to indulge in their desires, while the luckless watch on in envy. I suppose that if the rest of the world sees this and thinks this is all Los Midas is, it's a small wonder they think the city's problems are overdramaticized."

"It's a tale of two cities, man," Dan bitterly answered as he followed. He seemed angry at what he was seeing, like he wanted to smash the nearest advertisement down on a passing high roller's head. "The one down here is only a couple blocks long, but, as it's the one with the cash, it gets all the attention.

"It's all a crock to begin with; a damn smoke-and-mirror routine. That's how Zach's parents went broke, you know—the only places that ever end up winning for real are the casinos. And all that money goes back to the guys who run them, guys like the Don and his toadies."

Richard didn't answer: while they had moved along, he had kept his own scanner pointed to the ground, searching the side streets and alleys…and just now he had gotten a ping. Drawing to a halt, and thereby causing the others to stop along with him, he said, "Seems our quarry is getting some fresh bait—scan down there; the back entrance to that building."

Dan, distracted from his monologue, looked down. "I see it—back of the Platinum Link, boys."

In moments, the entire group had their Dragon Lenses Scanners aimed downwards on night-vision mode. Richard quickly zoomed his in, and now he was just in time to see the last of a group of four —two men and two women— get kicked out the back door by a couple of rather large and imposing men in suits and sunglasses.

He didn't have the audio tuned up, but they seemed rather cross about the four of them. One of them walked up to closest of the gamblers, causing him to put up his hands defensively and move back, only for the bouncer to punch him in the face. The other moved in and kicked another trying to crawl away.

They continued to harass the group for a few moments before one finally snapped out and seized one unlucky man's hands, ripping their watch off, then going to force his shirt off. Another bouncer came along and tore off the woman's coat and blouse; the other man was grasped by one of the sunglasses-wearing bouncers while another pulled off his jeans and underwear.

Hey, Boss…isn't that something we should stop? It looks like they're getting robbed…

Richard sighed. Unfortunately, no, Greymont. They didn't walk away when they had the chance, and they rolled on credit—you do that, and the casino can decide to make an 'Everything or Nothing' call on you at any time. If they do, and you can't pay your bill, they can literally and legally seize everything of value off of you, down to the clothes on your back, before throwing you out. I may not like it, but they dug their own graves by betting money they didn't have.

Despite what he said to Greymont, the masked man had to muster all of his willpower to not step in as he saw the other male's shoes and socks forced off, one woman's skirt and undergarment stripped from her, and the second woman's bra ripped off. The four were quickly left as a rather miserable- and pathetic-looking sight; dazzled, naked, and literally left in the gutters.

As the other bouncers collected what they had ripped off of the gamblers, one of the men shouted one last phrase, obviously to never come back, before they all turned around, and went back inside, slamming the door behind them. The four were left to slowly pick themselves up—slowly because most of them were still too battered to move rapidly.

The tallest man in the group and one woman had barely managed to roll onto their feet when Richard and his group spotted more new arrivals. There weren't many shadows in the Lucky Borough, but apparently some had been found, and now a group of five individuals stepped out of them.

They looked similar to what Richard had seen of gangs so far, especially the purple bandannas that were obviously gang colors. They were also heavily tattooed, and, as Troy had indicated earlier, were all of Jiodisan origin.

It didn't take long for those on the street to see them too, and to immediately devote their full attention to the approaching gangsters. One of the naked four held up a hand and began to call out something—Richard could only assume it was that they literally had nothing left to be stolen. One of the five said something back, and it obviously wasn't pleasant, as the four looked even more fearful than they had a moment ago. They looked to start inching away, the head of the quintet shouted something, and the gangster to his right drew a knife.

"That's the Hydra Wyverns, all right," Dan affirmed. "I know the colors."

"I knew they were all talk, but picking a fight this one-sided ain't even funny!" Troy snorted. "Let's go down and bust some heads already."

"No; just wait," Richard answered. The others looked to him a bit strangely at that, but he kept watching. If the gang members were going to attack these four, then that would be reason to intervene, but he had a feeling that they did have 'something' on them that the gang wanted. It seemed that that was indeed the case a moment later, when they suddenly pounced on the four, surrounding them.

One tried to break for it, but the Hydra Wyvern with a knife quickly snapped his arm around the woman's neck and put the blade to her throat. That was enough to make the others go rigid, and they stopped struggling. The four were roughly "helped" to their feet, and the five began to escort them to the back of the casino.

"Like I thought," Richard said, "we don't want them yet—we want them to take these four to wherever their little den is, so we can get their whole gang at once."

Dan watched a bit longer himself, making sure they were only being taken away around the corner, to the back of the Platinum Link. He sighed. "Guess it would be better to get the whole pack, and not just a few strays. Let's just hope they aren't just getting them where no one can hear them scream…."

Richard motioned to their left and took off. The others quickly followed, trailing him as he took a path around the advertisements and alleys, on an approach that would get around behind the group at the back of the casino proper.

It took a little while to get around, but eventually they were approaching on the straightaway. By that time, all of the gang members had vanished around the corner, but Richard assumed their prisoners were still alive.

On arriving at the new position, however, Richard noticed that there was no one around, gang members or otherwise. For a moment he tensed, thinking his intention to go for the more numerous targets might have just cost some lives.

Luckily, that lasted only a moment—there was an old underground service entrance toward sublevel utilities not far from the corner, and it appeared whoever had been last down hadn't "shut the door behind them". As there was no other place they could have gone so quickly, that had to be it.

Immediately, Richard simply jumped off the edge, letting himself plummet for a few moments and then simply land on the ground feet-first; Greymont absorbed all the impact. He could have used him to anchor himself and go down the building's side, but he knew by now that worked far better for going up than down.

The others had a bit more work ahead of them. Voltaire had been good enough to equip them with some Aurino Military "gravity rappels" before coming; Richard had figured they'd need them if they stuck to the roofs as he preferred. On the outside, they appeared only to be tiny silver tridents, little more than toys; therefore the gang had seemed somewhat skeptical about them.

However, Dan once again took the lead, went to the building edge, and jammed his trident end into the wall. Immediately, the magically-enhanced points pierced the stone and locked in, and with a click the back of the staff portion loosened.

Dan took this up, drawing out a length of the silvery wire inside, and attached it to his belt. A moment later, he stepped over the edge and began to rappel down; the line held perfectly firm all the way to the ground. As soon as he touched down and disconnected it from his belt, the grapple on the other side made a click of its own, disengaged, and recoiled back into the handle.

The rest of the gang soon followed, although not nearly as neatly as him. Still, they all touched down in relatively little time—they were the better ones of the Hammer Wolves, after all. Requiem gave a nod to his new team before drawing his blade and taking the point position again. Without a sound in spite of the armor, he crept to the edge of the opening and stepped gingerly onto the stairwell; the others rapidly followed as he descended.

The pathway was short, no longer than a stairwell into a common basement, and while the lighting of was a sickly-yellow industrial quality, it was fairly well illuminated…which was an unsettling thing for Richard and his group, for blood stained the walls on several places. Richard began to fear what might have happened in even the short time it took to descend, but kept on, ready for battle.

After only a moment or two, he reached the room at the bottom and moved in…and saw nothing. All that was there were a few portable toilets, seemingly stored down there for outdoor events; no other entrances or openings, not even for ductwork. The others rapidly fell in behind him and looked around, but saw the same. A few actually moved to the side and inspected the walls a bit, but still found nothing.

Troy let out a curse. "Damn it! We should have jumped them back there—now we got nothing!"

Richard's feelings, however, hadn't changed; he knew better. They had somehow managed to slink out of nowhere and grab those people, and all without making it obvious for security cameras; this was the only place they could hide to spring an ambush from.

"I didn't see no transport or anything come in and pick 'em up…" Troy mused.

Dan shrugged. "How about warping? That's what we do."

The armored man answered by raising a hand to his Dragon Lens and pressing a few buttons. After several taps, he shook his head. "No mana residue in the area; even if they have someone skilled and powerful enough to use the Inflecto Nectunt spell to remove themselves 'without a trace', that would still leave at least a little—and Troy's right: there's no way a transport could have come in and gotten them without us hearing or seeing something."

Dan scratched the tip of his chin. He walked in a few more steps, tapping his foot on the ground a bit. "Thinking there's a trap door around here or something, Requiem?"

Richard turned and looked toward one of the blood-spattered walls. A moment later, he advanced, pushing through some of the others, and going back to the blood. He reached his hand out and touched it. On withdrawing it, he saw there was a mark.

"This is fresh; my guess is, it came from one of those four." He looked along the wall a bit farther. "And it splattered, so it wasn't dripping from old wounds. One of them got slugged, or cut by a knife, and it came along…" He traced his hand along the wall. "…here…like this…which means it had to come from…" He began to step slowly away from the wall, keeping his head turned and his hand out, obviously imagining the trajectory of the blood.

The other gang members parted, and eventually he reached one area in particular: the center portable toilet. "…here," he stated. He mashed the button to open the door. At once, a horrendous, putrid stench rolled out and slammed everyone in the nostrils. Some of them cursed and stepped back; even Dan pulled the nape of his shirt over his mouth and nose. Troy was gagging.

"Damn it—unless they were sick enough to take a Jacuzzi in crap, man, there's no way they went through there!"

Richard himself was indifferent to the odor—Greymont's face covering worked as a good shield against poison gases and stenches, it seemed. "That's probably what they'd like everyone to think…." he mused as he stepped forward and reached a gauntleted hand inside.

He felt around a little for a moment, staying far from the commode portion, and focusing on the walls, before he finally found it: the towel dispenser. He reached up and patted it, moving his fingers along the surface around, behind, and in back of it. Finally, his search bore fruit: he felt a hook that seemed rather out-of-place. He grasped it, and found that it could be moved, so he gave it a pull, swinging it to one side.

The gang members were startled as the wall to the right of them gave a grating sound and split down the middle before both pieces of it swung inward. It didn't expose anything other than another set of stairs, but it was definitely a step in the right direction; Richard quickly pulled out of the portable toilet and slammed the door shut behind him.

"Well, I'll be damned…." Dan chuckled as he pulled his shirt back down.

"From the age, it looks like this is a leftover from the days when things weren't so 'free' in Los Midas—maybe for smuggling contraband. Seems they found a new use for it…" the prince mused aloud.

"Considering this is Los Midas?" the capped man answered with a whistle. "Must be something pretty damn heavy…."

Richard shook his head. "They may have tried to keep it concealed, but if they really wanted this to be hidden, there were hundreds of better places in this city than the Lucky Borough. My guess is they've got an arrangement going on with the mob—"

The young man was cut off as shouting came up from the stairs.

His eyes narrowed as his sword rose. "No more time for musing. Let's fly, Ravens."

Again the young man took the lead, going faster this time, but still staying quiet and keeping his eyes forward: if there was any way they could make a better ambush than simply busting in, he intended to take it. The shouting got louder, although it didn't sound likely to be the group from earlier; it seemed more likely that the gang that had ambushed the four unfortunate souls were arguing.

There was another set of stairs after the first set, and another after that one. Richard realized they had to be nearing the utility levels of the city at this point, going into the sewage and piping; by the time he descended the last set of stairs, the newer concrete and steel of the city had been supplanted by older brickwork and masonry, showing the passage's age. At any rate, there was now a hallway just ahead, leading to a somewhat ajar door. Light was streaming from inside, along with the voices, some of which were peppered with Jiodisan speech.

Once there, Richard put one hand out to quickly get the others to stop behind him, and then proceed at a much slower pace; his other hand went up to the Dragon Lens scanner and tapped it.

He switched to the short-range echolocation mode as he neared the door, although he stayed on the outer side of it for now. His Lenses' echolocate function went through to the other side, providing him with a readout of a very large room.

He could only get so much from it while remaining behind the door, but he spotted a lot of older abandoned junk, such as mechanical conveyer belts, forklifts, and dusty old needles. In spite of that, from this distance he could definitely hear something large giving off the distinctive humming of a modern, kaisonite-powered machine.

He tapped his scanner again, quickly shifting to an infrared readout. It was hard to see much through just a crack, but he could make out a number of figures toward the back, along with a large machine putting out a lot of heat.

Four of them were on the ground and cowering to one side, with others standing around them; he assumed those were the people and some Hydra Wyverns, respectively. His focus, however, was more on what he heard coming from the other side; he turned up the sonic amplifier to listen in a bit better.

"—ear about all that!?" an angry gang member shouted.

"Hey! You told me we weren't bringing in enough chicks; I got us another pair of chicks!"

"Along with two dudes! What the hell we going to do with them!? We're already overloaded on dudes!"

One of the men, presumably one of the people from the casino, let out a whimper; immediately a blow rang out.

"Shut the hell up, or I'll cut off your nose next time!" someone shouted, causing him to clam up. "So, dog, still going to give me that look? How much more do I have to stab the point in? You all failed as human beings, so now you're being downgraded to work-dogs! If any of you want to ever crawl up to the status of a human being again, you're going to have to show you can be of good use to the Hydra Wyverns!

"We know you're not used to being work-dogs, but if you don't know how to get in line, my brother, Cheng Wong, will have to break you in. And you enjoy your job, yes, Brother?" A pause. "Do you know the meaning of 'priority', Brother? I told you, we ain't rounding up strays tonight! This is our big hit—we don't need any more heat if someone gets nosy!"

"Aw, come on, man—just four more! Hell, I can sling two of them over my shoulder…."

"Just shut up, and let me do the thinking from now on! Whatever—not about to turn down more work-dogs…. All right, you fresh meat, I don't have much patience for useless crap, so if you like living, you better learn to love your job! Adjusting pipes is really nothing much, so if you can't even do this right, we will throw you in, to drown with the rest of the vermin! All right—one minute until the Hydra Wyverns make their biggest mark yet on this city!"

"Now, Hwang, you said we're only pumping this spit over to the Midas Hounds' biggest holdout, right? I got a cousin who's only a block or two away…."

"Then get on the damn phone and tell him to keep from drinking it too, already," Hwang snapped, "because I don't feel like busting every Midas Hound head myself, just because you were too dumb to pay attention two weeks ago. Just one more thing: haven't heard anything from the Hammer Wolves, right?"

"They're up the river." A big voice snickered. "Didn't realize how stupid it was to spit in the face of the big dogs. Won't be hearing from them ever again!"

"So, once the Midas Hounds are out of this picture, we rule over half the streets of this town!" Another snicker. "That should make the boss happy; nobody ever left a mark this big on Los Midas!"

"Got that right—the Hounds may learn it a bit sooner, but over the next few days, everyone, from top to bottom, is going to know not to screw with us!"

Richard tensed up quite a bit on hearing all of this: it seemed that picking the Hydra Wyverns on this particular night was a good move. He wasn't sure exactly what was going on in there, but from the sounds of it, it seemed to involve poisoning a large portion of the Midas Hounds and not really caring who else got in the way. The human trafficking was bad enough, but this sounded like it was literally on the cusp of a large-scale massacre. There was little time to waste. He turned to the others and made a gesture. "Get ready to move when I say."

Dan looked back to the others, then gave a nod. Richard looked around a bit, and saw a spot of good luck: this area was so old that it had much larger ducts in it than one would normally find, including one close to the ceiling that led into the next room.

It was locked off with iron bars tough enough to guard a prison cell, but all he needed to do was use Metal Morph to get them out of the way. He then rapidly scaled the wall and climbed in, the others quickly going up to the door.

Richard moved quickly, entering the room proper and keeping his eyes out for another grating, hopefully one that could give him a better look into the room itself. He found one only a short distance inside, as large as the previous one, and affording a great view. Moving up and peering through it, he spotted a large group of somewhat flamboyantly- and/or brightly-dressed individuals in the back, all wearing purple gang colors.

Two stood head and shoulders above the others, literally. One was a tall, lanky man with spiked red-and-orange hair; the other was an even-taller, bulky man with a goatee, black-and-blue hair tied in a ponytail, and dragon tattoos lining both arms.

The four from the casino were huddled to one side, a bit more bloody and bruised than before, but alive. One had a cut on his ear lobe that had bled quite a bit, but there was little else of note about them.

What he noticed more than the rest, however, was the presence of a very large and equally new machine in the back that looked like some sort of pumping mechanism. It was currently being hooked into what looked like a very old, very thick pipe running through the room; obviously some sort of water main.

Whatever the pumping device was, Richard realized that it had to be the method for delivering their poison. And if they were being so crude and reckless as to poison a public water supply….

I can't let that happen!

Quickly, he pinched his thumb and two fingers together, generating a smaller Mist Bomb than usual, and then, with a casual flick, flung it through the grating and down into the center of the room. His aim was perfect, and it immediately broke and began to issue a thick cloud of vapor.

It only took a moment before both of the tall men snapped around in alarm, and the whole gang with them soon after that, but the Mist Bomb worked fast, and soon there was an obscuring wall of fog hiding half of the chamber. Many pulled out weapons, including the bigger one of the two in charge here, and aimed them into the expanding mist. Their heads darted around, but they saw no attacker.

"What the hell is this—some pipe bust? It doesn't have that poison in it, does it?" one member called.

"This ain't no pipe bust," the shorter of the largest two answered, his voice indicating he was the 'Hwang' from earlier. He coughed a bit. "Are the cops trying to screw us over after nailing the Wolves?"

"No way—we paid them twice their cut!" the bigger one answered, sweeping his gun around at the mist. By his voice, he had to be 'Cheng'. "Must be that one of those damn Hounds got word of this hit, and jumped the gun. Well, if they have a death wish, they're welcome to it…."

A loud metal clang rang out through the chamber, the sound of something landing on one of the loading machines. Immediately, the Hydras snapped to it, aiming their weapons: in spite of the obscuring vapor, they saw something or someone hunched down on the machine and slowly rising. With the mist obscuring it, it appeared to be little more than a shadow…or would have, if not for one thing: even in the darkness, two red eyes burned into the group.

The sight of this figure and the entrance it had made was enough to unnerve several members of the group, in spite of their weapons and numbers. Hwang blinked a few times. "What…what the hell is that?"

Cheng stared a moment, but then, as realization came over him, he grinned. "The Silver Demon!"

Hwang and a few others glanced to him, but the big man's grin didn't change.

"That guy they say broke into Rycroft Asylum earlier today, busting out those Hammer Wolves," he went on, before increasing his volume, indirectly addressing the man himself, "and apparently a nosy punk who doesn't know when to mind his own business!"

Nevertheless, the mention of Rycroft Asylum caused a bit more unease among the rest of the gang; they knew the security on that place was top-of-the-line, and the fact that someone had managed a jailbreak and then escaped without a trace left them more than a little uncomfortable. Some of them visibly jumped a bit when a shik of metal rang out: the sound of the man drawing and pointing his sword at the gathering.

"You're hurting innocent people, and you plan to hurt a lot more. That makes it my business!"

In spite of being rather nervous on seeing the blade (as well as the burning-red eyes), Hwang managed to put on a brave face, using the 'disrespect' Richard had shown to fuel his anger. "Hey, wise-ass—you may think you're pretty hot stuff, taking out a few overpaid mall cops at that prison, but you know who we are?"

He gestured to himself and the only larger gangster present. "We're the Wong Brothers, fiercest enforcers of the Hydra Wyverns! And it'll take more than some dude dressed like…like…" He made a wild gesture. "…whatever the hell you're supposed to be, to scare us!"

"If you don't fear your own 'Requiem'…" the armored man said in a dark, and metallic, tone, "…I'll just have to teach you to."

The rest of the group whipped up their weapons, training them on Richard: even if they were nervous about him, it seemed the dominant reaction was to shoot first and worry later.

The prince glanced over the armaments quickly: some were traditional plasma rifles —his Aura Edge could take care of those, so long as he could swing fast enough, and Greymont could block the smaller-caliber ones anyways— but others were wielding ungainly, larger weapons, flicking on the igniters at ends of them and turning on aiming lights. These were some form of flamethrowers; they couldn't be nearly so easily ignored.

Luckily for Richard, he could tell they all still assumed he was just one man.

Rather than launch an attack, Richard swung his blade to one side, the force of which whipped the mist backward, and exposed the rest of his group just as they charged out of the smokescreen. The nearest Hydra Wyvern barely had time to see that there were more opponents before Dan lunged and smashed him in the face.

Troy thundered forward, just as intimidating as before, crying out his Titan Force spell as he had back in the garage. With each step toward the gang, his muscles and stature grew, making him seem nightmarish.

One of the Hydra Wyverns quickly chanted a Fire Ball spell, flinging it at the onrushing hulk, but between his size allowing him to negate the force attached to it and the ability of the newly-supplied armor from Voltaire to negate minor spells, all he managed to do was make Troy laugh tauntingly before reaching him and punching hard enough to smash him into and dent one of the old conveyer belts. The rest of the gang also fell victim to the surprise attack, most of them unable to even get a single shot off before the Crimson Tengu Ravens were on them.

The Wong Brothers stood stunned for a moment, although of the two Hwang definitely looked the more fearful. "That story didn't say he had his own gang!"

"Who cares?" Cheng snapped back, far bolder and more confident, "I'm not letting Genjuro see us as weaklings!" He then turned to Requiem. "You're going to fry! Searing Burst!"

He snapped up his own hand and quickly traced a sign while chanting a spell of his own; Richard spotted this, and recognized what spell the man was using; he stood his ground, merely crouching and glaring at the two of them. A moment later, Cheng snapped his hand out, his own aura blazing and condensing into his hand, then sending out a blast of flame.

Unlike the weak Fire Ball spell from before, this seemed to form almost a ray or stream of fire that traveled far faster and burned far more intensely. Richard, however, had been waiting for this, knowing this attack required too much focus for the caster to follow the target around: he quickly sprung to one side, letting the beam strike nothing but air. Cheng snapped his head to Requiem's new location, glaring angrily upon seeing the dodge, but Richard didn't stay put long; his blade ignited in an Aura Edge as he leapt again, putting more power into his legs and lunging right for the bigger of the two.

In spite of Hwang's fearful state, he quickly reacted to this; as soon as Richard had taken off and was airborne, he lunged as well, shooting out into his opponent's path. Unable to adjust midair, Richard found the man's head smashing into his gut.

Compared to several of the blows he had taken, this was nothing to him while in Greymont's armoring, but it was by no means a light blow under normal standards, and was enough to interrupt his leap and knock him back and away from the two. He touched down a moment later, far away.

Quickly getting his footing again, Richard crossed his blade in front of him. The two Wong Brothers, seemingly deciding to take him two-on-one, drew out their own weapons: strange, multi-edged sickles that Richard recognized as Falx swords.

From the way they moved, he realized that the title they used for themselves wasn't just to stand out—they were used to teamwork. Furthermore, Cheng was left-handed, while the Hwang was right-handed. That might make this trickier; he wasn't used to fighting two opponents that worked together.

"You're in for it now, masked man," Hwang snorted. "No one survives when the twin fangs of the fire and ice drakes close in on their prey! Glacial Edge!"

Immediately his sword turned icy-blue and condensed moisture upon it, imbuing it with some sort of magical ice. He immediately sprang to one side, and began to move around Richard one way while his brother, his own blade having become fire-enveloped following his initial move, went the other, circling him.

Richard felt a little tense to have his attention split between two foes, but he didn't show it, only his steely visage. "'Brothers of fire and ice'? Not a bad motif, if it wasn't from such scum. I'd surrender now, if I were you."

The two didn't answer; they simply snapped in from both sides, beginning their assault. Richard soon realized that two-on-one, especially one when was always at the back, was indeed difficult—he was only able to direct his blade at one of them as he fought, swinging and parrying as best as he could; for his other side, all he could manage was using his metal hand to strike the flat of the blade, deflecting it. He didn't even have the time to manage a Metal Morph spell to morph his arm into a more appropriate blade, let along manage to get ready for a counter-assault.

Eventually, Cheng spun around while Hwang went the same way, and tried an overhead stab. Quickly, he backed up to avoid the hit, barely missing the weapons as they sliced for his chest: his armor might have been strong, but he wasn't stupid enough to test its durability now against these weapons. At the same time, Hwang slashed out for his back, trying to catch him while he was completely off-guard.

Having no other choice, he quickly spat out the fastest Metal Morph spell he had ever cast, and hoped it would work. It did, luckily; his free arm popped out a blade, which he quickly used to deflect the oncoming sword while snapping around.

Unfortunately, he noticed something else as well: striking out for that blade without using the more powerful, aura-imbued Auro Solais had a side effect: his new blade and his arm began to ice over from contact with the blue weapon.

They really did imbue their blades—I hope I don't find out the hard way if they can get cold or hot enough to break my arm-blade….

Hwang snapped back momentarily, striking his sword against the ground with a smile. Immediately, ice began to radiate from it across the floor, spreading from the point of impact: they were trying to ruin his footing.

While he did this, Cheng pressed an assault. Snapping his blade up and around his head, he barreled at Richard with a large, wild strike. Immediately the young man snapped up Auro Solais and parried, but he realized quickly that direct damage wasn't the intention; the move was so large and powerful that it forced him backward, and Hwang snapped up and shot out for him, aiming a strike for his flank to incapacitate him.

Luckily, Richard saw this coming: glancing to the ground for a split second, he suddenly raised the targeted leg and slammed it down, using one of his power-leaps to launch in the air. Hwang looked up in alarm, but that was only half of it: he realized too late that the kick to the ground had been so strong it had left a dent, and he gave a mild cry of surprise as he stumbled.

That set him up perfectly as Richard descended again, quickly lashing out with his other foot in a kick for his head. It connected, and with another cry —this one of pain— Hwang stumbled forward, right into his brother, both of them colliding…but, more importantly, hitting each other with their weapons. Cheng cried out as his right arm was frozen, and Hwang yelped as his left leg was singed.

Richard, on his part, touched down lightly and resumed his ready position. The two soon untangled from each other and snapped back to him, the bigger one fuming in absolute rage.

"Damn you, you son of a bitch!"

"If you charge like a mad beast, it's only fitting I treat you as such," the young man calmly answered.

Quickly, the two moved their own weapons over their affected body parts to stop the burning and thaw the ice, although it was clear damage had been done. Hwang seemed to be letting anger push him beyond his earlier fear as well, and looked to the bigger one; he stared back. A silent understanding was passed between the two before both nodded and snapped back to Requiem.

"Won't take us seriously?"

"We'll teach you what true pain is!"

A moment later, Hwang shot forward, blade out and before him, in a straight lunge for Richard. The young man was a bit confused at what he planned to gain by a telegraphed move, but he quickly crossed Auro Solais in front of him anyway. Yet, instead of snapping back like he did before, Hwang continued to push himself in, using his own size and momentum to actually propel Richard backward and away. The armored man was even more befuddled by this, knowing he wasn't going into a wall, but before he could counter, Hwang suddenly aborted the attack and snapped backward.

As he tried to figure out what this meant, Cheng stepped forward and cast another spell, again aiming his palm at him. A stream of fire erupted from it, just as before, and Richard made to dodge…only to suddenly stumble, nearly losing his footing and falling to the ground: he had forgotten about the ice. That was what the brothers had been doing: forcing him onto it.

He wildly snapped up Auro Solais instead, performing mostly a panic move for deflection, but, rather than trying to strike him as before, the stream of fire suddenly increased both in intensity and substance, transforming from fire into what looked like raw magma. Not only that, but with a loud snapping, it suddenly split in two, forming into chains. One snapped forward around his blade and wrapped around his sword arm, while the other attached to one leg.

Richard didn't hear Greymont crying out, and realized the dragon was fireproof, at least somewhat…but that hardly mattered when he still felt the agony, and the armor beneath Greymont proved a perfect conductor of heat.

Soon, a searing, burning pain began to grow from both points of contact, not to mention that the chains were strong enough to hold him in place and prevent his quickly breaking free. As the pain continued to grow, he saw Hwang quickly snap back to his brother's side: they were preparing another attack.

Realizing they were going to try something more fatal while his movement was limited, likely a powerful-yet-slow attack, he let the pain fuel him as he gritted his teeth and snapped the arm with Auro Solais up, in spite of it being bound, and swung it at them. His aura quickly ripped out of it in the form of a Mana Slash and flew right between them, with Richard hoping to at least interrupt their attack, if not do serious damage.

Unfortunately, they were able to counter well before it hit. Cheng jeered at the sight of the offensive spell. "Think we haven't seen something like that before? You're dead wrong! It's time, Hwang! Chaotic Tempest!"

Snapping both of their sword arms back in perfect unison, they spoke as one, chanting a new spell together. As the Mana Slash neared, they swung their sword arms forward and down to the ground. Power erupted from their blades again, this time taking the form not of two separate attacks, but melding together to form an orb that looked to literally be composed of raw magma on one side and pure ice on the other.

The orb snapped out and made contact with the wave, instantly exploding into something far larger and deadlier: a small tornado composed of icy diamond dust and burning embers. In spite of its small size, it burned and twisted with a chaotic ferocity Richard had not seen before, and instantly enveloped the entire Mana Slash before flinging it out to one side, smashing Richard's spell clean through a wall as the twister raged forward right for him.

Eyes widening, the young man tried to swing his sword —not knowing what good it could do, but hoping to at least deflect some of it— but had already used all his strength in the previous slash; he had no defenses as it slammed into him full-force.

Richard had taken painful blows before; the physical power from an attack like this, while enclosed in Greymont, even though it had enough power to smash him back so hard into a loading machine he nearly plowed right through it, only jostled him a bit.

The far greater pain came from the thermal magics slamming into him—Greymont's power hardly seemed to negate it as he felt intense freezing and burning simultaneously sweep over him. There was little doubt the thermal shock alone might have literally split him into pieces, and definitely killed him, if he wasn't a mage.

The only good side to all of this was that the waves of cold had temporarily chilled the magma chains holding him, giving him a small measure of relief from that, but now that the attack was over, their heat was rapidly building again. Even if he managed to get out of this, he realized, he only had about thirty more seconds at best before it'd seep through enough to give him third-degree burns.

Abruptly, he felt a sharp yank on the end, sharply and painfully bringing him to his feet and out of the indentation: apparently not only was he still tethered, but they still had the other end. He quickly glanced about as he came up, trying to see if he could get any assistance.

Not likely: more Hydra Wyverns had just sprung into the fray. The nearest one to him was Dan, and he was currently trying to block off a stream of flamethrower fire with his Shield Arm while readying another Turbo Knuckle. The others were similarly occupied. The only one available to help him seemed to be himself….

"The hell, Bro?" Hwang called as soon as he was yanked up. "His armor ain't even glowing!"

"Fine, then. Let's just cook him in it!" Cheng snorted back, glaring at Richard angrily. "—You got off easy before because your spell took off some of ours, man—but this next one is going to boil you in your own armor!"

The two again paired up and began to focus, putting even more power into it this time. Richard felt more than a little fear in spite of his stoic appearance.

I'm not invulnerable to temperature, even in this armor, and none of my stronger attacks can break through it completely. Even if I weaken this one, it's going to take more out of me, and if I don't get through soon, this chain might burn through two of my limbs…

Boss! Greymont suddenly shouted in his head. I think I've got an idea! Remember how you were thinking about how you couldn't put enough punch into your magic against that big, foul-tasting monster?

No offense, Greymont, but if this isn't related to getting out of this—

No! Wait! Remember what happened? You and the others beat it by working together, right? Well, there's two of us here, too! What if we put our power together? If we can synch all of our mana, we can unleash something that these punks won't be able to handle!"

In spite of the situation, Richard's eyes widened upon hearing that. "Wait…what?" he found himself quietly asking aloud. "You can do that?"

"'Maybe'? Can I change the shape of your arm a bit? The metal one, that doesn't feel pain?"

By now the Wong Brothers were nearly ready to launch their next spell. Richard swallowed. Sure, but make it fast!

At once, Richard's arm twisted and morphed; metal streamed into it from Greymont, enlarging the limb and morphing it further…only it wasn't a sword or spike this time. It became bigger around, broader, and deeper…not turning into a blade at all, but into what looked like a small plasma artillery cannon's barrel.

Not only that, but Richard soon felt something change within it—it was as if the mana flow he had learned to synchronize himself with suddenly was increased by a rerouted or diverted flow, something like an irrigation channel that suddenly had a river merge into it.

It was an odd sensation, and one he really hadn't expected, but suddenly it felt as if his own mana, at least in that limb, had increased by leaps and bounds—the power that Greymont naturally held within himself was no longer enveloping him as an extra layer, but was actually merging with his own magic.

It's working, Greymont! he thought back with growing enthusiasm and amazement. I can feel it building up in there, like I'm casting for a spell! It's similar to a Mana Bomb or Mana Fist spell, but definitely bigger….

Cheng and Hwang brought their blades back. "Feel lucky, eyesore—you're about to find out what it's like to freeze and burn to death at the same time!"

Hwang then laughed, adding, "Thought you were some demon of vengeance? —More like a lame joker that should've known to beware our power! Chaotic Tempest!"

Either the two hadn't noticed the change to Richard's arm, or thought it would be as useless as the sword had been, for once again they used their Chaotic Tempest, and fired off the same kind of orb as before, albeit more intensely charged this time. Richard immediately responded, snapping his arm up and aiming it right at the incoming attack, just as it burst into a flaming and freezing cyclone like before. It was definitely bigger this time—and more focused, and undiminished by Richard's own moves.

At once, Richard let loose his own spell. Resonating with Greymont's energy, he found himself speaking arcane words he wasn't familiar with. Perhaps they were new…or perhaps they were from a thousand years earlier. Regardless of their origins, he let them flow from his lips freely. He aimed his now-transformed arm right at the Wong Brothers, dropped Auro Solis to make a hand sign, making large sparks of energy dance across his cannon-arm, and furiously shouted, "Beware your power? No, Hydra Wyverns—the power that all of you should watch out for is my wrath! Flare Buster!"

For a moment, there was a great sound, similar to the noises of an Inflecto Nectunt, as the light about Richard actually seemed to dim for a moment. He felt something quiver and rumble in his Greymont-infused arm: all of the power that had flowed into it was suddenly increasing its flow-rate, causing a faint glow to emerge from the chinks of the armored portions of his limb.

Then, just as much to his shock as everyone else's, a deafening, indescribable noise roared out as he was snapped back by the force of his own spell; if not for the chains holding him, he might have knocked himself over. As it was, he quickly put a foot behind him as a large and potent beam of pure, bright-blue energy erupted from his limb.

In an instant, the beam was on top of the tempest. To say there was any sort of struggle would be more than an exaggeration; the beam burst through it as easily as a blast of wind would a candle flame —and evaporating it just as easily— as the Flare Buster proceeded towards the men beyond.

Neither of them even had time to realize what had just happened as the beam ripped right into their midst, blasting right through the space between them, and through their extended arms and weapons. Both of their faces twisted to shock and horror as they found that the massive beam didn't encounter any more resistance from their bodies than it had against their combined magics, instantly vaporizing not only their weapons but the flesh and bones on the other side.

They released agonized screams that were quickly swallowed up as the beam blasted past them and into the stone wall behind them, shortly filling the entire chamber with a blinding blast of light and a deafening explosion to match.

Richard snapped back, shielding himself with the very cannon arm he had just fired, as everyone else immediately broke for cover from the sudden eruption. Regardless of allegiance, the combatants froze in their tracks and cowered from the force of the sudden blast. It died down a moment later, the light dimming and the sound fading away into a resounding echo, and everyone looked in amazement and shock at what was left.

The room was quiet now, save for machinery, as the dust settled, revealing a far-reaching, black hole in the wall, dug deep into the dirt on the other side. Richard, beneath his mask, actually blinked a few times in astonishment as he unshielded himself: not only had that attack been powerful, he realized, it had been as focused as Orion and Raphael's moves—otherwise, a blast of that kind of power should have killed them all through the resulting cave-ins alone.

Yet soon after, the sounds of human cries rang out, moving everyone's attention back to the Wong Brothers. Both of them were now grasping their Falx-bearing limbs…or, rather, what was left of them. Their weapons were nothing more than dust now…maybe even atoms.

The arms that had held the weapons were much the same: all that was left of either one was a charred stump, still smoldering and smoking, the tips of the exposed bones actually glowing like embers. As tough as the two of them were —or thought they were— they were now clutching their wounds in total agony.

"Holy sh…" Dan remarked, for once his more cheerful air swallowed up by pure shock at the power.

Troy blinked once, then suddenly let out a hearty snicker. "Damn—when that guy plays hardball, he plays for keeps!"

Troy's latest opponent was shaking like a leaf, his jaw nearly to his chest as he stared at what happened. "He…he just…he took down the Wong Brothers like—"

He was silenced when Troy turned and backhanded him to the ground. "Don't ignore me, punk," he snarled.

Richard was rather stunned at his own power himself—he had had no idea that he and Greymont together could make such a potent combination. Even Orion might have had a hard time shrugging that one off…. He began to wonder what else the two of them combined could do, but then turned back to the situation at hand. He used the moment to draw himself up fully; after all, with the wand-bearing arms incinerated, the magma chains had evaporated as well. He was free again, and once more standing in a fighting stance.

Hwang finally managed to stop crying out, but fell to his knees, the pain making him sweat and quiver all over. He looked up to the figure in shock and horror, his own mind awash with pain and astonishment. "What…are you?"

Richard tried to look as bold as possible, but he still had to take in a few strained breaths before he could answer. "I already told you—I'm Requiem, the Demon of Vengeance." He tightened his sword grip. "Now, do you yield, or do you want to lose more than an arm each?"

Hwang's eyes twitched. "You…mother…fu…"

He got no more out; the pain became too unbearable, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he collapsed. Cheng looked at his brother fearfully, realizing he was now standing alone, but could do little in his own wretched state; there was no way out.

He then snapped his head back up to Richard, glaring hatefully and with all the fury he could muster, but he was in too much pain even to throw a punch at this point.

However, he gave a start a moment later, when he saw not only that Requiem had advanced, but that the barrel of the weapon was now aimed squarely at his head.

"You've lost; if you value your life, surrender."

Cheng continued to glare at him a moment longer, still furious, but unable to do anything about it. In his eyes, Richard saw twitching…clearly looking for something else to try against his foe.

To be honest, the young man wasn't sure he could fire another one of those so quickly—although in Cheng's current state it didn't matter. Still, that meant he couldn't actually stop his foe from trying one more thing, so he tightened his grip on his sword further and readied to counter whatever attack the Wong Brother would make.

However, what ended up happening was too fast for him: Cheng suddenly removed his remaining hand from the stump, went to his breast pocket, and seized something inside of it. Richard wasn't sure what it was, but he heard a clicking from within.

With a large groan and much hydraulic clicking and hissing, the pumping mechanism in the chamber suddenly began to hum, followed by the sounds of internal pistons and valves beginning to work, moving fluid.

Cheng grinned wildly at seeing he had pulled this off before yanking his hand back out of his pocket. "We may be going down, but so are the Hounds!"

The noises in the machine rapidly began to pick up speed. It didn't sound like it was forcing anything into the water main yet —apparently, it needed a few moments to warm up— but the way Cheng had said that, it was rather clear this machine was going to dump whatever poison they were going to use as soon as it finished readying itself. And when that happened….

Gritting his teeth angrily, Requiem immediately snapped his arm, making it return to normal, lashed out and seized Cheng by the neck, and then brandished his sword, setting the tip on Cheng's nose. "If you don't want to lose the rest of your limbs, you shut this down now."

"Screw you," the big man said with a sneer. "Besides, even if I wanted to, it only has a one-way switch; once it begins the startup sequence, it can't be stopped!"

Richard let out an audible hiss before releasing the man's neck, only to swing his metal hand around and slap him on the side of the face, sending him crashing to the floor alongside his brother. "We'll see about that…."

Immediately, he rose and began to advance on the pumping mechanism. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like there were any master controls there that could be used—it had to have been totally wireless, and its volume was continuing to escalate.

It might have been pumping it into the water main already, and he wouldn't even know it. He doubted it —that probably wouldn't start until he stopped hearing it getting louder— but who knew how soon that would be….

Whatever Hydra Wyverns hadn't been knocked out by the Crimson Ravens or lost their resolve on seeing the Flare Buster weren't fighting back, but were starting to grin and pump their fists in victory. Dan ignored this as he looked to Richard. "What are you waiting for? Just tear it apart!"

"I have no idea what kind of toxin they're using, or what this machine does; simply smashing or slicing it might poison us all," he answered.

"Then zap it! Short it out!" Tony chimed in.

"That might be just as bad, especially if it's flammable." Richard sighed, quickly looking over the machine for something —anything— that would indicate a way to operate it. He finally found a metal compartment on the side. Seizing it, he ripped the panel cover completely off, and revealed a set of controls. He immediately reached out and mashed one that looked like a power switch, only for nothing to happen.

He tried pressing a few more, but got no reaction—they had to have been locked once the machine started, or maybe he just wasn't pressing them right; he didn't know which, as he had no idea how this technology worked. While he'd learned plenty about the nature of computers, Richard had barely begun to take advanced classes, and was far from an expert on the finer details of user interfaces.

Wait a second!

Quickly, he reached up to his scanner and switched the Codec on. "Claire, are you there?"

A second or two of silence passed. Richard swallowed: to tell the truth, there was no way to know for sure if she had bothered to listen to this. It didn't concern her directly, after all—yet, before he could get too anxious, a voice responded.

"Where else would I be? What do you want?"

A new noise started up inside the machine, causing a cold chill on Richard's spine, although the humming kept building. "All right, I'm assuming you've seen and heard all of this, so I'll cut to the chase: can you hack into this machine's network to disable it?"

There was another pause, making Richard tenser still. However, when the voice came back, it was quite cheerful. "Yeah, no problem; I can do that easy enough. Just link up our Codec network to the terminal, and I'll get right on it!"

Richard blinked. He looked around slightly. "I…uh…don't have any wire—"

"Wireless terminal, genius," Claire groaned. "Look, this pile of brass can't possibly have a sophisticated code on its network; just tune your scanner to the damn access channel already!"

The young man swallowed a bit at the sudden tongue-lashing, scanning around a bit for something that might be an access port.

"For the love of…. Your Lenses do have a radio scanner mode on them, right? Use it!"

Giving almost a little jump, Richard quickly switched modes. As the machine began to whine, he got it set to RADIO SCAN, and, sure enough, a HUD tooltip popped up over one of the ports on the machine. Almost immediately, he saw his scanner lock on and begin some sort of analysis.

He didn't know how or why; only that Claire had to be doing it—she had already hacked into their Codec network to control certain parts of the scanners remotely somehow, and was planning to expand her control further. Of course, he didn't really care, so long as she could stop this.

A moment later, he heard a laugh. "All right—I…am…in! Let's see…" Richard heard the sounds of fingers tapping commands into a keyboard. "Sheesh, where the hell did they get this? The techies fixing registers at BMC could do better than this…. What a dump—most inefficient code I've seen in decades…. They're actually wasting all that data on multiprocessing? And look at that—they're actually using custom interfaces for something so simple…."

"You know, lives are actually on the line—"

"Oh, I'm sorry—do you know how to hack into a network?"

The prince went silent.

"Then do me a favor, and stop yelling! You're distracting me, and besides, my cryptographic sequencer already shut down the firewall…."

Richard felt like pointing out that she was the only one who was yelling, but right now he was getting fearful that this was taking too long; the machine sounded like it could start any second…yet, before it could start pumping out its contents, what sounded like an enormous switch being pulled inside of it was suddenly heard, along with a bubbling noise.

"Okay, it's now…no, wait…wait…"

A few more keystrokes; the humming started quickly fading, and a few more hydraulic snaps went off. The machine went totally still; its humming died down and disappeared altogether.

"…all right, now it's completely offline!"

In spite of everything he had been through, Richard only felt like collapsing as relief flooded over him. "Thank you, Claire."

A wily snicker came back. "Oh, please, you act like it was hard—two chimps and an intro-to-programming student could have done it! Their password was 'hydrawyverns', for crying out loud…."

The terminal began to flicker back to life; apparently, with the main sequence cut off, the controls were re-enabled, including the digital informational display. Richard shifted his gaze to it for a moment, before he heard a grunt and a moan from his side. Looking back, he saw Cheng was still conscious, and was again clutching his arm as he frantically tried to drag himself to the machine.

"No…no…! We almost had 'em! Damn it—Genjuro's going to make me gut myself in front of him!"

The armored man quickly snapped the rest of his body around. What small cheers and looks of victory the Hydra Wyverns had formed quickly faded as they saw both that they were now helpless and that their plan was thwarted. With the danger passed, Richard used the opportunity to draw himself up further as his red lenses burned into them. Many of them swallowed and began to cringe.

"For those of you still standing, by now I—"

A beep went off from the terminal speakers; Richard immediately looked to it, fearing some sort of backup program was executing itself. However, it was just the screen finishing refreshing to its standby screen, highlighting where the pump had been preparing to empty its contents. He nearly looked away from and ignored it…before he did a double-take, seeing what was on that console.

His fists tightened as his jaw clenched again: he hadn't felt this much anger since the massacre he had seen in Zaylor. He nearly wanted to beat in one of their heads right now, and snapped angrily back to the gang.

"I might just kill you sick pieces of garbage anyways."

"What is it?" Dan spoke up, clearly seeing that there had been a change.

Richard pointed back to the terminal, now seething with anger. "This stuff wasn't just going to poison a block or a building—they were going to poison the entire borough. They'd have killed thousands of innocent people to win their petty little war of pride!"

Most of the Crimson Tengu Ravens reacted in shock to this. However, they weren't alone: most of the Hydra Wyverns did the same. One of them suddenly turned to another, gesturing at Requiem. "What the hell is he talking about!?"

"Hey!" another shouted up to Cheng. "You didn't say that's what was going down! You said, 'just the one block'!"

Dan himself was frowning at this point. He snapped his head to one side, seeing one of the Hydra Wyverns who looked as shocked as the others. Immediately, the Raven reached out, seized him by the scruff of his neck, rather like a dog, and making him yelp in the process, then dragged him forward up to Requiem. Once there, Dan shoved his head forward. "Read it. Tell me and your boys if it's true!"

The gangster was a bit stunned at this treatment, but, between Dan and Richard both glaring at him, he swallowed and looked it over. The fact that the color drained from his face upon seeing it was all the confirmation they needed. He blinked a few times, and then called out, "It…it's true…! The dude's telling the truth—it would have gotten into all the water in the Royal borough!"

"What the hell, Cheng!?" an angrier member shouted. "My mom and two sisters clean up rooms at King's Palace!"

"You would have killed half my family! This was supposed to be just the Hounds' hideout!"

Cheng merely sneered from where he lay on the ground. "You all swore the Hydra Wyverns were your only family when you joined up; you can't take this, then you didn't deserve to be part of the gang in the first place…."

Richard glared at the man hatefully only a moment longer, before leaving the side of the pump and returning to his side. On reaching him, he again lashed out and seized him by the neck, this time yanking him all the way up. In spite of the differences in size, he easily held the big man in the air.

"So, you wouldn't just kill innocent people, you'd kill your own comrades…just to make a point?"

"It was to prove the Wong Brothers could make it big time," Cheng growled in response. "We'd be in Costa Toro tomorrow afternoon, if not for you!"

"And why would a gang like yours be in Costa Toro?"

Cheng simply grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know!"

The grin faded into a cry of agony a moment later, as Richard snapped him around and bashed his head against a metal pipe railing. Still crying out and cursing, the man then found himself dragged to the top of the machine that he was placing all his bets on. Richard promptly slashed open the top of the machine, saw some sort of rather unhealthy liquid in his sights, and promptly lifted the Hydra Wyvern over the new hole.

"I'll ask you again: why would a gang like yours be in Costa Toro?"

"Go to hell—you might have beaten me, but you won't last long—"

"Neither will you."

At once, Richard elbowed Cheng hard in the gut with the hilt of his sword, causing his target to cough blood. He then lowered the gangster slowly, towards the poison.

"Here's how this works," he snarled. "You tell me what I want to know, or I make you beg me for death long before I kill you."

One of Cheng's eyes twitched, his agony from the burned stump of an arm growing unbearable. "It doesn't matter!" he shouted back through his pain. "If I rat on them, they'll make my worst nightmares seem like a good—"

Richard lowered Cheng till his feet were just inches from the toxic liquid. "I won't ask again. Next time you hold out, you're going to regret you own something so dangerous."

"I don't know anything! Genjuro just said we would be there tomorrow, to make those who owe us money pay us back with interest, soon as we met up with the Corps! That's all!" he shouted, almost hysterically.

Richard caught that last phrase:

The 'Corps'….

Immediately, his grip tightened into a near-crush. "What 'Corps'?!"

Cheng just looked delirious as he muttered, "You think you're hardcore, Requiem? You're nothing compared to the Ibis Corps; they'll chew you and your posse here up and spit you out!"

Richard cried, furious, "What—you know of the Ibis Corps!? That's who you were making the deals with? Enough games—WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR!? "

Cheng's eye twitched again and he coughed up more blood before muttering, "Damn—head's more messed up than I thought. I was on such a roll they would've made me a Jinn Cadre! Ugh…."

The trauma had become too much even for the big man; Richard gave Cheng another shake, but got nothing—both of the Wong brothers were unconscious now. He thought of venting more of his anger upon the Hydra Wyvern—god knew he deserved it, and far worse…but in the end, loosened his jaw, swallowed, and calmed enough to merely drop the man onto the floor next to the machine.

That done, Richard landed beside Cheng, moved over to his breast pocket, patted around a bit, and soon found the device the unconscious gangster had to have pressed earlier. Reaching inside, he grasped it and pulled it out, revealing that it was a small personal computer instead of a true switch.

He tapped the side of his armor, opening a hidden compartment built into it, and put it inside. He rose afterward and went to Hwang next. After rummaging through his pants pockets a bit, he found another one of the devices, and took that as well. Finally, he rose and faced the room.

Both Crimson Tengu Ravens and Hydra Wyverns were looking at him now; the former wondering what to do next, and the latter wondering what he was going to do with them.

"Whoever is still standing, you have two choices: go quietly to jail, or…." He reached over and took up his sword.

One of the gang members immediately threw up his hands in surrender. "I never knew he was going to try and poison the whole borough! I swear!"

"Yeah, me neither!" another shouted. "I just wanted to move up in the city—I didn't want to kill a bunch of innocent people!"

"No—only a bunch of people who were in a gang besides yours," Richard darkly answered as he brandished his sword in front. "And that's somehow supposed to make this 'all right'…."

A number of the members swallowed. One of them stammered for a moment, then suddenly threw his gun down. "Look…to hell with this! I just wanted a piece of the pie! If Cheng was just talking out of his butt, well, to hell with him, the boss, and all of the guys down with this! I quit!"

"Y-yeah!" another stammered, "I was down with the robbing and stuff, but not the killing!"

Richard idly cast a spell over his blade, causing an aura to ignite over it.

The gang members were more fearful than ever. "Uh…look, man! You took these guys out like the trash; I know not to mess with you now! You're the big man in town!"

"Yeah, man—all you!"

"Your gang's the best!"

"We're not a 'gang'," Richard calmly cut him off, taking a step forward. All of the gang members shifted; one nearly turned and ran for it. "We're an order. We unleash justice on those who feel they're above the law and think little of making the innocent suffer, whether that be mobsters…terrorists…corrupt officials…" His red eyes flared. "…gangs…."

One of the gang members looked ready to pass out; another one seemed on the brink of relieving himself in his pants.

"You…uh…you know…I…uh…always wanted to do that kind of thing…."

"Yeah! M-me too!"

"And me!"

"Uh…you, um…don't happen to have any openings in this gig…uh, would you…? Because I'm with you all the way, man!"

"Sure—so am I!"

Requiem took another step forward. "You think joining me is so easy?" he said, his tone quiet and unusually dangerous. "You think whatever punishment I might give to you now wouldn't be preferable? You think I won't know the difference between someone devoted to justice…" The blade made a small —but completely audible— noise as it flickered forward slightly. "…and a snake trying to save his own skin?"

By now, the Hydra Wyverns definitely wanted to flee…but the Crimson Tengu Ravens had their eyes on them now. Several of them were grinning rather darkly, almost as ravenous as their former namesakes. With the pumping mechanism off, the silence was so absolute that they could almost hear the sound of their own hearts racing.

The end of the sword flicked out to the nearest member, and he nearly fainted dead away.

"It's your lucky day—the police in this city are also my enemies, so I won't force you to go to prison…this time. This is what you will do: you will ensure these four," He indicated to the four naked individuals, who by now were cringing more than ever against the side wall. "are released, as well as anyone else in your human trafficking scheme, and then you will resume your lives…refraining from further sins, of course. In time, I will contact you if I feel you are worthy. If you fail to do this…or take advantage of my good nature in sparing you imprisonment this morning…"

His blade extended further, resting itself on the chest of the thug.

"…wherever you go…wherever you run…wherever you hide…you will one day find yourself going into a private, hidden room to sleep. And on that day, when you turn on the light, the very last thing you will ever see is me, waiting for you."

The gang members didn't need to hear any more assurance than that. They stayed frozen only until Richard removed his blade; when he did, they all snapped around and bolted for it, practically tripping over each other in order to escape as fast as they could. As they abandoned their lair, Richard looked up to the others. "Ravens, our work here is finished. Let's just destroy these machines, to make sure no one tries to pump anything in here again, and then depart."

Snapping up his blade, he swung around and sliced through the nearest machine. Unfortunately, Richard had forgotten about his Aura Edge; on cutting into the machine, it immediately burst from within, practically exploding from the slice.

Some of the Crimson Ravens let out curses and shielded themselves as debris splattered out, and one piece of it actually shot over and struck a woman in the group huddled against the wall. The impact was light, but even the touch was enough to make her snap her head up and scream hysterically—she had clearly been holding it in for a while.

Richard turned to her in a bit of surprise, but on spotting her and the three others with her, he realized that they had seen everything he had done, and —to be honest— he might have sold the idea of being a demon of vengeance a little too well. He swallowed a bit, and then drew himself up more, taking on his 'princely' persona, and speaking in a far lighter and more polite manner. "I'm sorry for you ordeal, madam. At the very least, you—"

The woman only screamed more hysterically, cutting Richard off, before getting up and tearing out the door the gang members had run out. The other three with her quickly got up and followed like bats out of hell, along with all the others present that the Hydra Wyverns had forced to work for them.

Richard was honestly a bit surprised—he didn't know people with bare feet could run that fast. Of course, it also made him sweat a little within his armor, and uncertainly clench and relax his hands. A moment ago, he had channeled some of his favorite figures from his mystery novels to work the 'fear' angle on the thugs—but apparently he was much better at it than he'd thought.

This is awkward….

Dan looked back to Richard and saw his uncertain look, and then chuckled. "Well, can you blame her, Requiem? Between that big-ass energy blast and grilling that guy, hell, even I'd be sweating a bit if I was on the other end of that cannon. I don't think there'd be much left of me, Shield Arm or not!"

Richard took in a deep breath. He reminded himself he had taken on this persona to instill fear in the corrupt, not to win the admiration of the innocent. They were safe; that was all that mattered. "Let's finish up in here quickly; I don't think anyone wants to be here when the police arrive."

No one argued with that; immediately, they turned about and began to work on smashing up the remaining machines, either using weapons or, as in Dan's case, their bare fists. In moments it was done, and Richard turned to the exit, returning Auro Solais to its sheath and leading the way back out again. Dan followed soon behind, but seemed a bit more uncertain.

"You really want to let those guys go blab about what went down in here?" he asked as they moved.

"Unless we want to personally 'introduce ourselves' to every thug in the city, we need someone to spread rumors about us," Richard answered with a lightly amused tone. "For now, they'll think it's just hysteria. When more reports start showing up, we'll truly start looking like mythic figures. Then fear will do some of our work for us."

"What if they cause more trouble?"

"I'll hunt them down if they do…but, if any of them weren't just trying to save their skins back there…then, the more the merrier."

Dan let out a small snort. "Gee, and here I thought we were special…"

"It's not set in stone," Richard answered, "but, depending on how things unfold, and if we really want to take this nationwide, we'll need all the help we can get, and I'd like to leave the possibility open. I'm honestly not really thinking too much about that right now; I'm more interested in what Cheng said before he passed out."

The former gang leader looked up a bit. "You mean what he said about the Ibis Corps back there?"

"We'll be finding out more soon, if we can. For now, though, the mission seems to have gone as planned: the Crimson Tengu Ravens have left their first mark on this city."

By now, Requiem was at the doorway. He passed through it and into the hall on the other side. He wasn't sure if the police had already been called or not, but he didn't want to still be going back to the exit when they showed, assuming someone had called about that trapdoor.

"The first of many," he added before breaking into a full-speed run. Despite hearing sirens in the distance, as Richard saw his team dash from the battle zone at full speed, he was relieved: for all the hassle, the Crimson Tengu Ravens were able to debut as he'd hoped—as heroes.