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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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And when their eyes scanned past the vanguard of Italian capos and finally landed on Caleb's face, that was the exact moment their blood turned completely to ice. That is when they knew this was an unmitigated, catastrophic situation. Tavish's face drained of all color, his arrogant sneer completely washing away into a mask of pure, sickening dread. Leigh took a physical step backward, his hands beginning to shake.
They remembered exactly what they had done. They knew that their grand, corporate funded conspiracy had backfired massively.
Just a few days prior, the wealthy, smooth talking rich backers had sat in their parlor, promising them endless capital to build Rhodes into a metropolis. The rich backers of theirs had convinced the Grays that the Don of Saint Denis was an easy target.
They had assured Tavish and Leigh that Caleb McLaughlin had grown fat and complacent sitting in his mansion, that he had entirely lost his grip on his lethal skills, and that a professional hit squad could wipe him off the map without a second thought.
But the Grays had received the terrifying news yesterday, of course. They knew that Caleb had survived the assassination attempt without taking a single scratch, and that he had slaughtered all six of their expensive mercenaries in broad daylight using weapons no one had ever seen before.
And now, the demon of Saint Denis was sitting on a black horse at their front gate, looking directly at them.
Tavish Gray, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, desperately tried to maintain his composure in front of his hired men. He tried to act tough, puffing out his chest and tightening his grip on his cane.
"Mr. McLaughlin!" Tavish called out, his voice cracking slightly despite his best efforts to sound authoritative. He forced himself to walk a few paces closer to the gate. "What is the meaning of this? What happened here? What is all this ruckus on my private property?"
Caleb looked down at the sweating, terrified plantation owner. A slow, dark, and utterly merciless smile spread across his handsome face. He didn't raise his voice, but the sheer, commanding power of his tone carried perfectly across the dusty yard.
"Mr. Tavish," Caleb began smoothly, resting his gloved hands casually on his saddle horn. "We meet for the first time face to face today. But I am completely sure that you, and Mr. Leigh standing right there behind you, know exactly who I am."
Tavish swallowed hard, a bead of cold sweat rolling down his temple. "We... we know of your reputation in the city, sir. But that does not give you the right to bring an armed mob to my home."
"I am not here to debate property rights, Tavish," Caleb replied, his smile vanishing, replaced by a look of cold, uncompromising steel. "I came here today to have a very specific talk with the two of you."
Caleb leaned forward in his saddle, his piercing blue eyes completely locking the two men in place.
"I wanted to look you directly in the eyes," Caleb stated, his voice dropping into a deadly, vibrating register. "I wanted to tell the two of you exactly what a massive, unforgivable mistake you have made. You actually thought you could send those men into my city. You actually thought you could pay mercenaries to assassinate me."
Hearing that explicit, undeniable accusation spoken aloud in front of all their men, Tavish and Leigh practically collapsed inward. Of course, the two men knew they were completely caught. There was no denying it, no hiding behind lawyers, and no eastern backers here to protect them from the wrath of the Italian mafia.
Leigh Gray immediately threw his hands up in a frantic, desperate gesture of surrender. "Mr. McLaughlin! Please, you must listen to us! We were lied to! We were pressured by men from the west and north! We didn't want to—"
But Caleb did not allow them to speak. Before they could even draw a breath to finish their pathetic apology or beg for their miserable lives, Caleb officially delivered the crushing verdict.
"Save your breath," Caleb cut him off, his voice echoing like the slamming of a heavy iron vault door. "I am not here to negotiate, and I am certainly not here to accept your apologies."
Caleb sat up perfectly straight, his massive frame imposing against the gray winter sky.
"I am here to officially declare war on the Gray family," Caleb announced, ensuring every single mercenary, farmhand, and capo heard the decree. "For the cowardly, treasonous actions you have done against me, retribution is absolute. And it will arrive for you very, very soon."
Tavish Gray's knees actually buckled slightly. "You can't do this! The law—"
"I am the law," Caleb sneered, his max level Persuasion Skill absolutely shattering their morale. "You sit on your porches and you think you have power because you own some dirt and some tobacco. You think you can build a city to rival mine. You think you can do it. But in the end, there is absolutely nothing on this earth that could ever save your family from me."
Caleb paused, delivering the final, ultimate psychological blow to the arrogant Southern aristocrats.
"By the time this week is over," Caleb promised, his eyes burning with a dark, prophetic fire, "your legacy will be completely erased. Your family will be exactly like the Braithwaites. Buried in the ash of your own burning home."
The mention of the Braithwaites, the ancient family that had been utterly annihilated by a gang of outlaws, their mansion burned to the ground and their bloodline severed, struck Tavish and Leigh like a physical blow to the chest. They knew exactly what Caleb was capable of. The sheer horror of their impending doom finally, fully took hold.
Having delivered his message with flawless, terrifying precision, Caleb did not wait for a response.
He didn't draw his guns. He didn't order his men to charge the gate. He simply pulled the reins of his black Arabian horse.
With a smooth, practiced motion, Caleb turned his horse entirely around, presenting his unprotected back to the dozens of armed mercenaries standing just a few yards away. It was a display of absolute, supreme confidence. He knew they wouldn't dare shoot him, the fear he had just instilled in them was far stronger than any loyalty they had to the Grays' gold.
Caleb lightly spurred his horse, and he rode out, leading his massive, heavily armed group slowly away from the Caliga Hall plantation gates.
Behind him, Tavish and Leigh Gray were left standing in the red dirt of their driveway. They looked completely, utterly pathetic. They were like pecking chickens running around a slaughterhouse, frantically looking at each other, not knowing what to do, their minds completely failing to process how to stop the avalanche that was about to crush them. The mercenaries and guards slowly lowered their weapons, looking at their employers with profound doubt and fear.
Caleb and his sixty capos rode back up the dirt trail at a steady, measured pace. They did not rush.
However, as Caleb and his group were already far away, just about to officially leave the premise at the absolute edge of the sprawling Gray property line, the Don suddenly pulled hard on his reins.
His black horse came to a dead stop.
To everyone's surprise, Caleb didn't say a word. He simply raised his gloved hand in a sharp hand gesture.
Arthur, John, Vincenzo, and the capos immediately recognized the silent command. Caleb told the group to part away. The sixty riders instantly steered their horses to the left and to the right, opening a wide, clear lane directly down the center of the dirt road, providing Caleb with an absolutely unobstructed, perfectly clear line of sight all the way back down the hill to the distant front gates of the plantation.
And that was exactly what they did.
Sitting alone in the center of the parted column, Caleb Thorne reached over his shoulder. With a smooth, metallic ring, he unslung the pristine, blued steel Vanguard bolt action rifle from his back.
He rested the heavy wooden stock against his shoulder. He chambered a high velocity, pointed .30 caliber spitzer round with a sharp, incredibly satisfying clack of the Mauser style bolt.
Caleb raised the advanced optical scope to his eye. He was over three hundred yards away from the front gates. To a normal man, hitting a target at this distance with the naked eye was practically impossible.
But Caleb was not a normal man.
He closed his left eye, and he actively engaged his supernatural, max level Dead Eye Skill.
The entire world around him instantly shifted. The ambient noise of the snorting horses, the rustling of the tobacco leaves in the wind, and the crunch of the gravel completely faded away, replaced by the heavy, rhythmic, deafening thud of his own heartbeat.
The bright, overcast winter sky instantly shifted into a harsh, high contrast amber tint.
Time itself slowed to an agonizing, molasses like crawl.
Through the flawlessly clear optics of the Vanguard rifle, Caleb looked all the way down the hill. He could see Tavish and Leigh still standing in the driveway, frantically shouting at their men. But Caleb didn't target the patriarchs. He needed them alive to suffer the full destruction of their empire.
Instead, Caleb shifted the crosshairs slightly to the right and to the left. He targeted the senior plantation guards and the ex Confederate mercenaries standing immediately beside Tavish and Leigh.
In the hyper focused, amber tinted reality of the Dead Eye, Caleb's hands moved with robotic, impossible speed.
He painted the targets.
Mark. A glowing, blood red 'X' materialized directly over the forehead of the trembling guard who had spoken to him earlier.
Mark. A second red 'X' burned into existence over the bridge of the nose of a heavy set mercenary holding a shotgun just two feet to Leigh Gray's left.
Mark. A third red 'X' locked flawlessly onto the temple of the Confederate veteran standing right behind Tavish.
Mark. A fourth red 'X' settled exactly between the eyes of the gate captain.
Four men. Four flawless, impossible headshots mapped out in a fraction of a second.
Caleb's finger curled around the steel trigger. He exhaled slowly, letting the air completely leave his lungs, and he squeezed.
The Dead Eye sequence unleashed its absolute fury.
CRACK!
Caleb's hands moved with blinding speed, racking the bolt and chambering a new round before the recoil even fully settled.
CRACK!
The bolt flew back, the empty brass casing spinning perfectly into the air in slow motion.
CRACK!
Another round chambered, another squeeze of the trigger.
CRACK!
Four deafening, thunderous gunshots echoed across Scarlett Meadows in less than three seconds. The sheer speed and mechanical perfection of the Vanguard rifle, paired with Caleb's supernatural ability, created a display of marksmanship that defied human physics.
Three hundred yards away, standing beside Tavish and Leigh, the four targeted men never even heard the shots that killed them.
The high velocity spitzer bullets, stabilized perfectly by the polygonal rifling of the barrel, crossed the massive distance in the blink of an eye. They struck with devastating, apocalyptic kinetic energy.
Before shooting them right in the head, Caleb had ensured the message would be intimately, horrifyingly clear to the Grays.
The four guards' heads snapped violently backward simultaneously. The heavy bullets punched cleanly through their skulls, erupting out the back in a massive, horrific spray of crimson mist, shattered bone, and brain matter.
The blood and gore violently sprayed directly across the pristine linen suits of Tavish and Leigh.
The four dead men collapsed heavily into the red dirt, dropping their weapons, completely lifeless before their knees even hit the ground.
Tavish and Leigh stood absolutely frozen, completely covered in the warm blood of their own protectors. They stared at the four corpses at their feet, their minds utterly shattered by the impossibility of the shots.
The sniper had to be a mile away. There was no defense. There was no hiding.
At the edge of the property, the amber tint faded from Caleb's vision as time snapped violently back to its normal speed.
The four empty brass casings hit the dirt.
Caleb lowered the smoking Vanguard rifle from his shoulder. A dark, terrifyingly satisfied smirk crossed his face. He had delivered the final, undeniable point of his visit.
He didn't just tell them war was coming. He had truly given the official declaration of war in blood.
Caleb slung the rifle back over his shoulder. He grabbed the reins of his black Arabian horse, looking at Arthur, John, and Vincenzo, who were all staring down the hill with wide, deeply impressed grins on their faces.
"Now they understand," Caleb said calmly, turning his horse back toward the road leading to Saint Denis. "Let's go around the area for making our camp, boys. We have an invasion to finalize." The sixty riders closed ranks behind their Don, their dark coats flapping in the winter wind as they rode away, leaving the Grays completely trapped in a nightmare they could not wake up from.
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Name: Caleb Thorne
Age: 23
Body Attributes:
- Strength: 8/10
- Agility: 8/10
- Perception: 9/10
- Stamina: 8/10
- Charm: 8/10
- Luck: 9/10
Skills:
- Handgun (Lvl MAX)
- Rifle (Lvl MAX)
- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl MAX)
- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)
- Knife (Lvl MAX)
- Blunt Weapon (Lvl MAX)
- Sneaking (Lvl MAX)
- Horse Mastery (Lvl MAX)
- Poker (Lvl MAX)
- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl MAX)
- Eagle Eye (Lvl MAX)
- Dead Eye (Lvl MAX)
- Bow (Lvl MAX)
- Pain Nullifier (Lvl MAX)
- Physical Regeneration (Lvl MAX)
- Crafting (Lvl MAX)
- Persuasion (Lvl MAX)
- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)
- Cooking (Lvl MAX)
- Teaching (Lvl MAX)
- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)
- Inventory System (Permanent - 100x100x100)
- Acting (Lvl MAX)
- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)
- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Business (Lvl MAX)
- Leadership (Lvl MAX)
Money: 2,772 dollars and 60 cents
Inventory: 283,392 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 74 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, 1 land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Braithwaites Land Deed, 1 Broken Pirate Sword, 1 Milton's Safety Deposit Key, Proof Of Marlin-Thorne Firearms Co., 10 Dynamites, 1 LeMat, 1 M1899, 1 Carcano, 1 Ownership deed of Doyle's Tavern, 3 Diamonds, & Important Documents & Deeds Of Cornwall
Bank: -