The clown gang grew little by little, and it wasn't long before we ended up working for the biggest and most powerful gang that ever existed: the government.
We were in Governor Dipshet's offices (yes, he's the same one who took me to that party on his island, the one who might have ended up eating my shit).
"You know the drill," Dipshet told Darius. "we have to make sure my guy wins the election."
"Don't worry," Darius replied. "My best men will take care of that."
The deal was pretty simple: we would make sure his candidate, Diddlecrook, won, and in return he would help us wipe out the other gangs in Saint Money.
But you might ask: how can crime help someone win an election? Well, there were several things that we could do:
protect the neighborhoods that supported our candidate so they would feel safe; raid neighborhoods where people didn't support him to steal their IDs 'cause they couldn't vote without them; on election day, we could create chaos where our candidate would lose so no one would dare go out to vote; steal ballot boxes from those areas so no one could count those votes; buy votes; threaten journalists who criticized our candidate; And if none of that worked, kill the other candidate and call it a day.
But this last thing was not that easy to do without making people suspect that our candidate had something to do with it or even planned it all to win the elections.
But the solution was pretty simple: the difference between security and insecurity is much smaller than people think. If one gang guns down another at plain sight, people get outraged, lock themselves in their homes, and tell the government to do something about all that insecurity. But if the police gun down a gang, though, then the government shows it as proof that they are working pretty hard to make the town safer. Both sides killed people with the same violence and cruelty, but the police are "the good guys." If you think about it, an arrest is a legal kidnapping, a fine is a legal bribe.
A cop and a gang member are pretty much the same thing, and the only difference is the uniform.
So we dressed up as cops to kill the other candidate. The plan was pretty simple: first, General Tantrum fabricated a crime and issued an arrest warrant against him, then he sent us to get him, and we were gonna kill them all claiming self-defense.
We went to the station, and some of the cops gave us uniforms and all the equipment. General Tantrum had told them that we were cops from another state and that we were gonna work with them on that operation.
The other clowns went to the dressing rooms to get changed. Uniform, vest, gun, radio, cartridges, badge. I smiled; the cops took so long to put all that gear every single day, but I could kill them in a second with a spell.
At that moment, I felt a really powerful aura approaching, much more powerful than any I had ever felt, and that was only 'cause I couldn't sense my own. I had felt that aura before, when we were done with whatever job Darius told us to do, and the police was just coming to arrest us. I always wanted to stay there and wait for him, to fight someone who could withstand at least one of my spells.
But now we were working for the governor, and I don't think he'd like me killing with his own police officers.
That aura drew closer and closer, and I hid my own aura so he wouldn't sense it. Also, I didn't know who the guy with that aura was, and I was curious.
The dressing room's door opened and some cops entered, surrounding one of them.
"Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Commander Herobert," that piece of shit said. He looked like some generic superhero: tall, ripped, with a big, square face and perfect black hair. From the start, I fucking hated him; you could tell right away he was one of those rich kids who think they're better than everyone else. "Remember, the most important thing in this operation is your safety, so please don't take any unnecessary risks."
What an idiot.
He then approached me.
"You're new here, aren't you?" he asked me, and I was almost sure he knew I was one of the clowns. "What's your name?"
"Pedro," I said 'cause I shouldn't say "Dark" or my real name either.
—Welcome to the team, Pedro. Let me know if you need anything." he put a hand on my shoulder and went to greet the others.
If you're wondering, he never knew we were clowns or that the government was working with us. In fact, he was never bribed or anything, not 'cause he couldn't be bribed, but just imagine how much it'd cost to bribe the cops one by one. If you want the cops to work for you, you just have to bribe the chiefs, and they'd just use everyone under their command.
In this case, the only cop that both the government and the clowns bribed was General Tantrum.
Anyway, we got into some cop cars and went to a ranch where that other candidate was. Obviously, we also found a bunch of gang members there, who opened fire on us as soon as they saw us.
I got out of the car and cast a spell on the first enemy I saw, but just before it hit and killed him, that fucking Herobert protected him by trapping him in a bubble-like shield that absorbed almost all of my spell. The shield still exploded with great force, and the enemy was sent flying and fell unconscious to the ground. But he was still alive.
"Control your magic, Pedro," Herobert told me. "You were gonna kill him."
I was about to tell that asshole to fuck off, but I decided to show that son of a bitch that I could control my magic much better than he could. When one enemy was about to shoot us, I'd cast a spell right on his hand so he'd drop the gun he was carrying; when one of them grabbed some of our guys, I'd cast a spell on their leg to knock them to the ground; when one of them threw a grenade at us, I'd catch it with a spell and throw it as far away as I could.
It wasn't long before I'd knocked all those guys unconscious or they were screaming in pain. All that was left was to find and kill that candidate.
But I didn't have to look for him 'cause at that moment I saw a truck approaching as fast as it could. We were in front of the entrance, and it had to pass through there to escape. So I cast a spell to destroy it with the candidate inside, but just before it hit, that piece of shit Herobert protected it with another bubble-shaped shield that exploded and flipped the truck over. The candidate and the enemies inside crawled out through the windshield and started shooting at us.
I cast several spells on them to knock them unconscious or to injure their hands and feet, so they couldn't attack us or try to escape. Herobert made tiny shields right over the barrels of their guns so they would explode and destroy them when they fired, or he would cover their faces with a bubble-shaped shield so they couldn't breathe and faint.
In the end, only two guys and the candidate remained. I casted a spell so powerful it could have killed all three of them, but once again, that fucking Herobert protected the candidate, covering him with a bubble-shaped shield that absorbed almost all my spell and exploded. Even so, the explosion was so powerful that both the two guys and the candidate ended up unconscious on the ground.
All I had to do was finish off the candidate, that's it. That was my mission.
So I threw a spell at him as fast as I could, but that Herobert piece of shit unleashed a very powerful aura, teleported to where the candidate was, and deflected my spell with a swipe of his hand, as if it was nothing.
That motherfucker had been hiding his aura from the beginning. It was much more powerful than before.
But I still was was more powerful than him, and that's why I thought about killing him. If it hadn't been for him, that fucking candidate would already be dead. He was the only thing stopping me from completing my mission.
"Easy, Pedro. We've got him," he said to me while he handcuffed him, as if I weren't a threat, as if he thought he was more powerful than me, as if I was a fucking idiot who couldn't even kill a fucking candidate.
I gathered all my magic in a single spell.
"Look: we got company," he said without even looking at me. A bunch of cop cars entered the ranch and approached us to take the candidate away.
I dispelled all my magic I 'cause I knew I could kill that fucking Herobert any other day.
The cops took the candidate, and we left. I went to my apartment, put my phone on the table, and waited. I knew that sooner or later Darius would call me 'cause my mission was to kill the candidate, and he was still alive.
I waited for hours and hours while I thought about what I was gonna say to him.
He called me in the middle of the night.
"Why is Bribeslot still alive?" he asked me as soon as I answered. That was the name of the candidate I was supposed to kill.
"I fucked up, boss. I'm sorry." I was sure he was gonna tell me to go to his office, and there he and his other right-hand men were gonna beat the shit out of me. And I felt I deserved it 'cause I didn't complete the mission, I didn't do what I was supposed to. I had to kill that candidate, whether Herobert was protecting him or not. There were no excuses. Darius had put me on that mission 'cause of that, and I blew it.
At that moment, I expected Darius to yell at me or tell me how much I had disappointed him, that perhaps to be a right-hand man was too much for me. But no:
"Don't worry," Darius said calmly. "That candidate's in jail. Everyone knows now he was working with gangs, and that's why his and his party's popularity plummeted. Our candidate has practically won already.
"And it's so easy to kill someone in jail.
"In the end, everything turned out pretty well," Darius continued. "Even that guy Herobert was promoted to Hero. And you did pretty well too. I shouldn't tell you this, but you're my best right-hand man, the only one I can trust, and that's why I have a special mission for you."