31st of March, 2011
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKtsdZs9LJo&list=RDHKtsdZs9LJo&start_radio=1
As far as Randal could recall, the corner between Sherman street and the 13th had always been the border between Empire territory and the slant's. Granted, he had no idea if that had been the case before he joined those who truly had the Bay's best interests at heart, and it happened shortly after Lung gathered all the chinks together.
From where he was standing – which currently is at said corner – this narrow right angle reeking of urine and with its walls constantly getting tagged by members of the two aforementioned gangs in a semi-permanent dick measuring contest had always been the border between ching chong lawlessness and common fucking sense.
Which meant that there were always watchers, on both sides of the fence, if only for the two gangs' respective leadership to have an early warning in case of an attack.
Randal was convinced the ABB's slavering wannabe dragon copied his betters on that, which only proved Kaiser's superior rule and that the fucking nip only got here so that he could fatten himself on good American folks.
Being on the rotation for watching the border was critical, important work for the good of the Empire, but it was also fucking boring, and all the shifts he ever did here only ended up in two different ways.
Either trading insults and threats with the baboons hooting from the other side of the corner, or shooting the shit with the other guys you got assigned on border duty with.
Coincidentally, and it was a first for Randal, he was actually doing neither of those things at the moment.
No, what he is currently doing is having a serious talk with the boys.
"I told you," he tells Big Joe while tapping the butt of his cigarette with his thumb, "We've looked everywhere for the bitch already and we found shit-all. Only place we didn't look? Ching chong central."
Big Joe grunts back at the insight while staring down one of the motherfuckers on the opposite side, which Randal knows means he's following.
Man of a few words, Big Joe. But he certainly had two very persuasive arguments at the end of his arms.
"Ergo, she must be hiding there when she isn't robbing us. Occam's razor type of shit," Randal concludes with a sage-like nod as he takes a puff of his smoke.
"Occam's what?" Fred, the last – and least – of their trio asks in his nasally voice.
Randal closes his eyes while inhaling another lungful of smoke before answering.
"Occam's razor, Fred. Means the least complicated solution to a problem is more often than not the correct one," he patiently explains while locking eyes with the man.
He watches as it takes a hot second for the meaning to reach the brain hidden behind two deeply set beady eyes as the guy makes a little 'oooh' of realization while slowly nodding.
In Randal's experience with Fred? Toss-up if he would remember his explanation in fifteen minutes, let alone two hours from now. Guy's a true believer and a good shot, but the sharpest knife in the drawer he definitely isn't.
Not like it matters overmuch, since nothing ever fucking happen when on border duty.
"Then why don't we go look already?" unluckily for his patience, his least intellectually gifted colleague doubles down on his stupidity with his next words.
"'Cuz you don't wake up a sleeping dragon, you lack wit," Randal scowls while sharply inhaling a last lungful of smoke, before tossing his cigarette butt away, "The slants' boss is lazy and complacent all the while Kaiser's assembling a mighty army so that when the day to deal with him finally come, it'd be a total victory, not a pyrrhic one."
"Oooh," once again, the man slowly nods, before adding, "A what victory?"
Before Randal can finish what Fred's dad almost certainly started with a nearby wall's help while he was still an infant, a commotion at his back and a curt 'incoming' from Big Joe forces him to look over his shoulder–
–only to realize that the four chinks posing as their counterpart for the day apparently managed to grow a fucking pair when he hadn't been looking and are currently making their way toward his boys and him.
So he postpone his attempt to slap the stupid out of Fred to turn the ABB gangers way after taking a step forward – important to establish a clear hierarchy, so that the chinks know who they should talk to when speaking to their betters.
"Oi, not a step further, this is our fucking turf!" he barks, his hand coming to a rest on his belt, next to his concealed weapon's holster, "The fuck do you want?"
"To not have to look at your stupid face, white trash," the foremost slant drawls in his heavily accented voice as he comes to a stop less than ten feet away from Randal, whose cheeks promptly go red at the insult, "But I know I'm not going to be that lucky, so I'm just going to ask a question instead."
The slant-in-chief's buddies settle over his shoulders, looking at Randal and his boys the same way Big Joe and Fred must be doing over his own.
"Got nothing to tell you, chink," Randal sneers.
"Someone angered the Great Lung recently," slant-in-chief carries on without any indication he heard Randal, which infuriates him even further, "And Jun'Ichi here," he nods toward the biggest guy of the lot over his shoulder, "Thinks the Empire is responsible for it."
A pause.
"So you guys can think?" Randal jerks back in mock-stupor, before locking eyes with Big Joe over his shoulder while jerking his head toward the slant, "Hear that, Joe? They can even think nowadays! Will wonder never fucking cease?"
By the time Big Joe grunts and Randal has turned his head back toward the chinks, the four of them are all positively fuming.
"Watch your tone, whitey," slant-in-chief sneers, "One word from me and you'll know the wrath of the ABB."
"As if," he snorts, before giving his counterpart a derisive look, "We all know your enlightened leaders assign the bottom of the barrel to watch this joint."
Slant-in-chief turns an ugly shade of purpler, but is cut by the chink he called Juniwhatever as he suddenly speaks in a deep, powerful voice.
"Did the Empire send one of theirs in our territory earlier this week, yes or no," the big guy asks after taking one lumbering step forward, a gesture promptly echoed by Big Joe in the corner of Randal's eyes.
"Why the fuck would I even answer that?" he finds himself asking out loud, genuinely confused, before growing annoyed, "Nah, you know what? As your better, I am the one who's asking the questions here. Where the fuck are you hiding the Nightflyer bitch in your shithole of a territory?"
Multiple pairs of eyes blink at him in apparent confusion, but the ching chongs are deceitful by nature so Randal isn't fooled.
"You said someone angered the carp koi? Well, tough luck," he looks down at the lot with his arms crossed over his chest, "Because the thief has pissed both Kaiser and Krieg. So you'd better cough up where she is, or even better, bring her to us, or they'll be a reckoning."
"Yeah, it's Oklahoma's razor, bitch," Fred chimes in, and Randal finds himself having to clamp down on his urge to deck the shit out of the guy.
Slant-in-chief visibly lets Randal's words sink in before scoffing in derision.
"The lot of you are delusional," the man spits, both metaphorically and at Randal's feet, which angers him even more than Fred's dumbassery did, "Even if the Great Lung harbored this thief you speak of, he'll never give what is his to dogs like you."
"I knew it! You are hiding–"
"Enough! Is the Empire behind those recent attacks–"
The discussion promptly devolves from here as Randal and slant-in-chief cut themselves off and trade insults multiple times in a row, tempers rising on each side.
"I said: enough!" Slant-in-chief quickdraw's his gun to angle it toward Randal's forehead, prompting him to take a step back to do just the same, the sound of quickly unleashed blades and safety clicking off echoing oddly in the deserted street corner, "I'm gonna ask you whitey, one last time. Is the Empire responsible for this slight?"
"Fuck off, ching chong," Randal sneers back, "I'm not telling you shit. Now better bring us the girl, or else!"
As he stares slant-in-chief down, the moment seemingly stretches for hours in Randal's mind, even though it was only a couple seconds long, tops.
Then one of the slants makes a wrong move.
The sharp bark of a gun's retort clacks like a thunder strike in the street corner, quickly followed by incoherent yells and a concerto of unloaded bullets.
***
Kenta takes a moment to acknowledge his man's report, before rising up from his lazy boy in a slow, ponderous motion.
"You did well bringing me this news," he comments offhandedly in Japanese and with a calm completely at odds with the inner fury inhabiting him, "See yourself out and go back to your post."
"Yes, Great Lung," the man answers, jumping to his feet with haste before snapping a crisp bow and exciting the room.
The door clicks shut, Kenta remaining silent for a moment as he mulls over what he just learned.
"Three times," when he opens his mouth once more, the air in his immediate vicinity turns hazy from the heat, a sign of his inner strength rising to the fore in answer to the perceived challenge, "In the past month, three times my patience and mercifulness have been challenged," he turns himself to face the only other man present in the room, "Were they not, Lee?"
The man wearing an Oni's face curtly nods back before speaking.
"They were, Great Lung," he agrees easily.
"First those thieves stealing from me, then the burning of my property, and now the death of my men," Kenta does not reminisce, but acknowledges his grudges out loud, "It seems the Bay has forgotten what waking up the Dragon entails."
"It would seem so, Great Lung," his second in command comments neutrally.
"Then I shall vent my anger in a productive way," Kenta snarls, "And I want you to give Nakamura-san a little visit. It is time she contributes to our cause."
"Your will be done, Great Lung," the man wearing a demon's visage nods one last time, before silently collapsing in a pile of ash after Kenta waves him off.
"I will show you the wrath of a dragon, Brockton Bay," he swears while peering at the city from the window through half-lidded eyes, "And this time, none shall forget it."
***
Max calmly cuts the phone call off, calmly deposits his cell phone on his home office desk before calmly swiping everything on said desk away in a fit of pique.
"Just!" he stands up to start pacing the length of his office, "What I needed!"
He comes to a stop before his TV, staring blankly at it for a second.
Then, with a quickly materialized sword in his hand and a wordless scream of rage, he promptly turns said object into a pile of useless scraps.
He is considerably calmer once he is done, dismissing his sword with a weary sigh while opening his shirt a little more.
"A gang war!" he scowls as he stomps back toward where his cell phone got 'lost', "A fucking gang war, over three dumbasses getting killed on border duty over what can only be stupid reasons!"
The worst is? He couldn't stop it even if he wanted to, since one of the men killed was Brad's, and the Changer has been chomping at the bit to pick a fight with someone, anyone since the Calvert frame job, and James was only going to be happy about the prospect of finally dealing with the ABB in a bid to create for the Gesellschaft the closest thing to a true beachhead the Europeans ever got on American soil!
"I just wanted!" Max growls while navigating his cell phone's repertory to do his duty as Kaiser and maybe, hopefully, find a way out of this mess that doesn't see him charcoaled by way of angry dragon man, "To find one. Fucking. Thief!"
***
A siren in the distance prompts me to raise my head from my workbench, before ultimately shrugging to myself and going back to my work once I ascertained that it wasn't getting any closer.
I've been at work for a couple hours by now, and the warehouse is thick with Witchfire and the smells of incense, flower extract and the odd vile and pungent thing. Around me, an entire array of boilers are hard at work extracting essential oils out of various flora while the odd animal bone or organs simmer gently in various cauldrons engraved with arcane sigils.
The past two days' supply runs have been fruitful – even if I had to make a detour to steal distilled water in bulk for practical reasons, which, thank the Emperor for Hooky's help, otherwise I would have been in deep shit! – and what little space that isn't currently cramped with alchemical devices is packed with the assorted… junk I brought back?
I give the piled supplies a side-eye look, before nodding to myself.
Junk is indeed one way to describe it.
In any case, there's junk and hologram tinkering equipment all over the place, making it a bit of a challenge to check on my various preparations on the regular.
The thing is, turning someone into a Preyer is a process that requires extensive preparations, most often done by an entire gaggle of Church-backed Witches instead of one lone teen, so it was always going to be a little complex for me to pull a Preyer-Witch hybridization ritual out of my rear end.
And if I want to hedge my bets? I have to craft and assemble every component of the classical Preyer-making ritual by myself before attempting to modify it.
As a side-note, the more I delve into the subject, the more insights I gather into the procedure, and the more I can't help but notice the obvious parallels between Preyers and Witchers. It's basically the same thing, but with a side-dish of religion thrown into the mix for good measure.
Which also means that the process has a nasty tendency to be lethal more often than not. Good thing I have the Panacea to smooth the angles, especially since I'm currently trying to 'upgrade' it while my pile of 'probably are going to be useless in the long term' reagents are currently getting refined to Preyer-making standards.
See, in-verse, Preyers and Witches have access to healing potions. And those are allegedly relatively easy to make since they are basically medicinal herbs – one named Angelica in particular – infused with Witchfire through alchemy.
Now, I'm not so lucky as to have the exact same plant, so I had to fiddle with the original recipe after cracking open my… Gnosis of the Millennium Tome…
"As good a name as any," I mutter to myself while throwing the thick volume of soul magic and witchery, having to repress a shudder of discomfort as I look back to my workbench.
So, after cracking open my spellbook of ritual soul magic that has recently earned a nod of approval from Hell a few dimensions and universes away, I deduced that the plant doesn't exactly matter.
What does are its properties in the human subconscious. It just works better with the Angelica in the Witchfire-verse because it's the angels' flower here and has been used in medicines since basically the dawn of time.
I did not have easy access to Angelica seeds.
But I did have easy access to lime-tree leaves.
Took a couple of tries earlier in the night, but it ended up working surprisingly well.
And now I'm attempting to combine the alchemical process that sublimes something as 'simple' as lime-tree leaves and their analgesic properties into a healing potion–
–to what's arguably already the next best thing to its parahuman's namesake, the great healing green goo, the Panacea.
"This one's a wash," I hum under my breath after lifting my hands off a diagnostic spell array, "But I'm getting closer, I can feel it."
Another siren screeches in the distance and I find myself scowling.
"Geez, it's the fifth time this night already. Can't they keep it the frak down?" I throw a stink-eye in the rough direction of the sound, "I'm doing important work here!"
The siren once more grows distant and I find myself sniffing in disdain before going back to my task.
"No respect at all for the little Tinkers out there who have to dodge their curfews, I swear."