As Mark walked into Carol's bar she immediately pointed back towards the street as she stared him down and yelled
"Out, now!"
Mark showed a smile and walked up to the bar where he took a seat
"Sorry about last time, and the time before that as well"
Carol continued staring him down with fury on her face as Mark began speaking
"I once knew a guy that showed me the same face you are showing me now… He was a little younger than you when we first met…"
Mark's mind drifted to the past for a few moments before he continued
"Bandits had killed off his family line and broken his back, but he clung to life in the hope of one day seeing his son and grandson avenged… So when me and my associates rolled through the area and clashed with the bandits before wiping them out I had expected gratitude, yet he stared at me with the same hate you have on your face"
Mark looked Carol in the eyes, he studied her face for a moment before he looked away again and continued his tale
"He was angry that he had been robbed of vengeance, by some one he saw as no better than the bandits, so I offered him a way to be reunited with his deceased loved ones to be reunited in death"
Mark rose to his feet, his sword clasped in his hand as he looked at Carol as he asked
"Do you know what he told me after remaining silent for a night?"
Carol shook her head slightly, death was inviting to her at this point, however she didn't have the nerve to end her own life anymore
"He said his son would be angry to see him like he was, to see his cheerful father reduced to an old bitter man, living on only because of spite and anguish"
Mark's eyes returned to the present after a few moments before he let out a sigh and muttered
"We became friends and I kept him company for the 37 years of his remaining lifespan… I apologise for acting too familiar, you reminded me of him"
Mark turned and walked towards the street when Carol called out
"Wait…"
A few moments passed before Carol picked a bottle off the shelf before she poured a glass and asked
"You said you wanted something strong? I can give you one on the house"
-
As Serina stepped out of her transport along with James and a few of her lieutenants, she had expected to find the street covered in dismembered corpses and Carol's bar shut down with even more corpses inside. However nothing seemed out of the ordinary, business even seemed better than normal on the street
'... Fucking trash'
"James"
"Yes, boss?"
"Reign in the sergeants, all of them"
"Understood"
It was clear to Serlina at this point that Kim had been starving out business in the area, and he wasn't even the worst-behaved of her sergeants. As she planned out an internal purge Serlina walked into Carol's bar along with James, the situation inside was calm, the renovation had turned the worn-down bar into a classy lounge, one that ship owners and merchants might actually step into to get a drink after stepping off their ships
'...There he is'
Serlina scanned the crowd and found Mark sitting at the bar, he was swirling around a glass of liquor while chatting with Carol, he gave quite the different impression than when she had seen him last
'...There's some sort of dignified air around him, well, that's certainly an improvement over the wild animal from last time'
Taking a seat next to the monstrous stranger, Serlina took off her jacket and handed it to James before she ordered
"I'll take one of what he's having"
Carol nodded and went to pour Serilna a drink as she sized up the stranger, he let out a chuckle and took a sip of his drink before he commented
"Don't stare too much, you'll make your boyfriend jealous"
-
Mark looked at the blush that crept up on the face of the monster boss before she quickly got her emotions under control, this in itself was amusing, however he realized something even more amusing from the subtle reaction of one of her bodyguards
"Oh, you're married?"
Seeing the reactions again Mark corrected himself before Serina could respond
"Right, fiancé. Got it"
It was only at that point Mark suddenly realized he had gone too far with his teasing, the first tell he saw was the back muscles of Serlina tense slightly, the 2nd and far more obvious tell was the bionic, blade-tipped tail that rapidly extended towards his face
'Might as well use this to my advantage…'
Mark raised his left arm and watched as the bladed tail passed right through his lower forearm while he twisted his arm around and caught the tip right before it pierced his eyesocket
"Chill out, I know I come off as an asshole sometimes, but that doesn't mean you can just stab me"
Serlina continued to stare Mark down for a few moments longer before she relented, Mark let go off her tail that quickly retracted, then Mark simply closed the hole Serlina had opened up in him before he continued grumbling
"Even if you stabbed me through my eyesocket you still wouldn't kill me, I swear, kids these days are so quick to anger"
"You can't exactly expect me to not respond to such an obvious threat?"
"It wasn't a threat, I was just teasing. I don't do threats, it's so much faster to just cut the head off someone instead of that"
Serlina gazed at Mark's arm where his 'wound' had instantly closed up after she had pulled out her tail, after a few moments she outright asked
"...What are you?"
Mark flashed a smile before he offered his hand to Serlina and spoke
"The name is Mark, nice to meet you"
Serlina gazed at Mark's hand for a few moments before she shock his hand, though she used her bionic tail instead of her hand, after Mark let go she concluded
"So it needs physical contact… That thing of yours"
Mark shrugged and admitted
"Pretty much… Now, should we get down to business?"
Serlina narrowed her eyes slightly before she asked
"And what exactly is your business?"
Mark flashed a smile as one word passed through his mind
'Annihilation… Well not in it's common literary sense, but still'
Sure Mark could sit and explain his carefully crafted plan to Serlina in the hope she would agree to follow it willingly, however he didn't really have the patience for that so took the far quicker path as he answered in a tone laced with contempt
"My business is my business, flesh bag"
Serlina took a few moments to collect herself before she stood up
"I see, consider our business concluded then"
A few minutes after Serlina and her Iron Snakes subordinates had left the bar, Carol sat down a glass of water in front of Mark and asked
"Was it really necessary to crush her hope like that?"
Mark shrugged before he answered vaguely
"She's a tough kid, she'll be fine, In fact, she'll be great not being seen as friends with me"
Mark shifted his gaze to Carol and continued
"Same for you, Carol… Say the word and I am gone"
Carol shook her head
"I've stopped worrying about dying at this point"
Mark nodded before he offered his palm to Carol who took his hand after a moment. Mark quickly fed off Carol's negative emotions for a few silent moments before he rose to his feet and left the bar, out on the street Mark began wandering around as he continued changing appearance in the blind spots of the surveillance network to throw off any would-be stalkers
'Back to it then… With the Iron Snakes pacified and The Order of the Yellow Star disintegrating, there's another 2 criminal syndicates to take care of in Towo station'
-
And so Mark started hunting, over the next week he finished off the head of the Livita family that made their credit from their extensive network of casinos and cage fight rings, taking down a criminal syndicate in a week hadn't exactly made Mark happy though as the last nut proved the hardest to crack
'Hmm… Yeah, I'm going to take the easy way out with this one'
The Gila cartel didn't just own their section of the Towo station, they ran it in its totality. It was literary sectioned off from the rest of the station and ran its own internal SubNet and atmosphere control, needless to say the security checkpoints between the Gila cartel section of the station and the rest were top notch and not something Mark felt like sneaking through
Thus, the easy way was his choice this time around
'This one should do…'
Looking at the rust bucket that once was a respectable small personal ship worn down from lack of maintenance and decades of patchwork repairs, Mark placed a hand on the side of the hull and after a few moments… He simply continued down the pier
'Now the trap is set, all there's left is for the mouse to return to its nest…'
And a few hours later the mouse, an overweight man in his late 40's did return, he was as one would say, hammered having been drinking for a few hours before he returned to his ship to sleep off the hangover and set off the following day, that was his plan anyhow
"W—"
However after entering his ship and closing the hatch, he only managed to make a single sound as Mark's hand was clutched around his windpipe. Smiling, Mark spoke to the terrified mouse
"You and I are going to get into a rather devastating accident, nothing personal"