Chapter 19

The Lord of Vermilion’s Test 2

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5 Days Later

7 PM

In Happy Smiles Convenience Store, Hell Hole District branch

Led by the frog faced doctor, Diego and the power armor clad Theo went through the back entrance of the 2 stories tall convenience store.

The store itself was nothing special, but it was located in an area that was unthinkable for your typical law abiding business to set up in.

A little background history here.

Happy Smiles was a nationwide convenience store chain that was in direct competition with the international 8-12 convenience store chain.

Happy Smiles and 8-12 were practically everywhere in the Commonwealth with Happy Smile leading by nearly a thousand branches.

That lead was nothing compared to the hundreds and thousands of branches overseas.

However, there was a thing that set it apart from other convenience stores.

It was the only convenience store that was able to make a branch in the most lawless most crime ridden areas and thrived

As to how that was possible, Theo discovered the reason the moment he walked in.

The back area of the store was filled to the brim with items of questionable origin.

Some luxury cars here, a few guns there and most surprisingly, a Z57A Assault Power Armor.

It was Theo’s Z49 Scout Armor that had a ton of steroids pumped into it.

The flexible plasteel of the Z49 was traded for a folded heavy tungsten steel.

It had detachable weapons such as 2 minigun shoulder weapons and a flame thrower on its left hand.

Quite simply, the Z57A was a tank on two legs.

The Z57A was not cheap!

Because it was only 1 version below the most cutting edge Z58 models, the Z57A had a price tag that could easily buy a brand new F-22A Raptor

“Holy shit…. Just who the hell is our client?” asked Theo with his voice scrambler on.

“You could say he’s the one that truly rules over Vermilion City. Most of the big players don’t know he exists but they’re unwittingly his pawns.” Replied the Doctor

“I’m starting to have second thoughts on this job” said Theo with a hint of worry in his voice

“I share the Boss’s sentiment” added Diego

“Hahaha. I felt the same way when I first worked for him 5 years back. But based on experience, he’s a pretty decent guy. Cautious as hell, but decent.”

The doctor’s words were spot on as the trio made their way up the second floor.

Every person they came across was armed ranging from a pistol to an assault rifle

Some were even armed with magic items such as a runed battle axe.

Whoever their client was, he was well connected

Their destination was a simple room with a table and a couple of chairs.

About 10 armed guards were stationed along the wall.

On the table was a speaker box, a webcam and an audio receiver

“Good to see you again Doctor.”

The voice from the speaker box was heavily scrambled.

It was more or less the same as the one Theo was using.

“Still as cautious as ever Lord.” Replied the doctor as he took his seat.

Since Theo and Diego weren’t sure what was happening, they stood behind the doctor like bodyguards.

“Given my true net worth, caution is natural. And stop calling me Lord.” Said the person named Lord

“Well, I don’t know your name and you did say that I can call you anything, so Lord it is”

“*sigh* fine. Do what you want.”

“Then let’s not waste time with the pleasantries. I never felt safe with a lot of guns pointed at me.” Said the Doctor.

“Very well. The agenda for today is two folds. First, it’s about that weird prostitute I told you about. Think you can do something about it?”

“Huh? That story was for real? Well, whatever. Sure I can do something about it, but I need to drag her to an operating table and crack her brain open.” Replied the Doctor.

“Unfortunately, surgery is out of the question. It would generate too much fuss if she disappears for too long” said Lord

“Huh? What are you talking about?” asked Theo

“Oh, I apologize. There is this girl that has been whoring herself. Due to her being the favorite of a certain mafia boss and her general place in society, she’s a treasure trove of information. Based on the guy we sent to seduce her, she’s a doll in every sense of the word. She’s beautiful, emotionless and a bit creepy. Based on our guy, she said that she cant feel anything. Pleasure, pain, sorrow. She’s physically and emotionally blunt. I doubt she even feels alive” Said Lord.

“Wow… that’s a scary condition to be in.” Replied Theo

“Indeed. But since our doctor here cant do anything without cutting her open, this plan is on hold for now.” Said Lord. “Let’s move to our second agenda. This is about The Boss and the mess he made in the Dionaea Incident”

The room temperature instantly dropped as both the doctor and Diego threw death glares at Theo.

For those who weren’t directly involved, the Dionaea Incident was nothing short of a terrorist attack.

Fortunately for Theo, Lord quickly cleared this misunderstanding.

“Based on the way you two are glaring daggers at Boss, you don’t know about Dionaea outside the news reports. Fret not, Boss did the right thing. The Dionaea building was a stronghold for a well-established Incubus. With both of your backgrounds, explaining further is like preaching to the choir, right?”

Both Diego and the doctor took a couple of seconds to process this information before nodding in understanding.

It seemed that both had run ins with the Incubi.

“Well then, with that cleared up, let’s move to cleaning up the mess you made” said Lord

“Just to be clear though, that was more of a desperate move than anything else” said Theo

He told them about Crow and her merry sidekicks. Naturally, he left out his Midas Alchemy out of the story. Only the doctor understood the story completely

“The Crow trio huh…. I have to admit, the firestorm was probably the only sure way to remove all potential leads that they could follow.” Said the doctor.

Diego and Lord voiced their agreement.

It was widely accepted that once Crow was on your trail, she will eventually find you and beat the shit out of you.

There was literally no escape.

“While your motive is made clear, it doesn’t change the fact that the media took it the wrong way as usual and turned it into ‘public outcry’” said Lord with a sigh.

Typical FNN fashion.

Take a non existent problem

Blow it way out of proportion

Turn it into a ‘public outrage’

Rinse and repeat.

Why the FNN was dipping their hands into destabilization was up for debate.

The most likely explanation was ‘they were paid to do it’

Who?

No one knows.

The target this time were the Superheroes and their unshackled movements.

FNN was calling them as vigilantes and must be collared.

Naturally, they ignored the fact that the Superheroes have saved their asses way too many times to count.

Hypocrites

“So… what’s the plan” asked Theo

“We have quite a few people readying to deal with this, but that fat two faced hag insisted that you needed to do your part in cleaning the mess” said Lord

Theo facepalmed, much to the confusion of Diego and the doctor

Fat two faced hag = Miss Samantha

The fact that she had enough influence to force this Lord guy to act on her words was proof enough that she was not to be trifled with.

At this point, Theo used a spy drone flying a thousand meters above their current location to begin tracking down Lord.

He wasn’t going to remain idle while other people manipulate him.

While he couldn’t do anything to Miss Samantha who was protected by the HAA, this mysterious Lord was a different story.

For now, he decided to play along.

He did feel guilty about this whole mess.

“That annoying hag aside, what needs doing?” asked Theo

“I’ll explain the details later.” Said Lord “The gist of it is this: We’re going to ‘convince’ the head honcho of FNN news to stop doing the shit pieces about the Heroes.”

“And we’re going to do the by?”

“We, I mean you, are going to kidnap someone.”

Theo could only groan at the shit he was about to go through

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