Chapter 152- Kingmaker 7

Same Day

Afternoon

A Certain Community Building

Electricity was in the air as the hayenas of the media gathered to bare witness Miguel Baroque's press conference.

Today was a good day for the peddlers of lies and deciet after all.

Earlier today, videos of Theodore Lorne single handedly beat down a group of armed men that belonged to the Human Rights Commision.

There were quite a few of them from different sources were uploaded into the net. Some captured via phones, others from surveilance cameras.

The clearest one was from an unknown source that stood fairly close to the action. This mysterious source had a powerful camera that had impressive zoom functions and it had cristal clear sound.

Rumor has it that this came from Theodore Lorne himself, though there was no way to prove it.

Normally, the big media corporations would side with Theo given the context of the video. In reality, they held nothing back and tried to smear him as a violent and uncontrolable entity that should be arrested.

They even went as far as public call the Superheroes to take him in.

Sadly, aside from a very small subset of lunatics, hardly anyone believed them. This was shown in their ever decreasing ratings.

Just to be clear though, Theo agreed with the media that he was a violent and uncontrolable entity.

Unlike the media, he was self aware.

Q: 'Why was the media doing this to him?'

A: Theo has stubornly refused to associate with any of them since his unwelcomed rise to fame.

Anyone who tried to do a surprise interview on him were ignored.... then suddenly be ambushed by a bunch of 'thieves' who made an effort to destroy their equipment along with stealing all their valuables.

Depending on how much the media person resisted, his injuries ranged from completely unharmed to beaten black and blue.

Once again, Theo was blamed for this.

Once again, they could not prove anything.

And thus, the animosity between Theo and the media has grown considerably.

Since most of the 'thefts' happened to FNN and their allies, they were the most vocal amongst Theo's haters.

But that did not matter now. What mattered to the media was Miguel Baroque's surprise call for a press conference. There was no subject matter, no event that needed commentating or anything.

However, as the enemy of the people, it was the main stream media's duty to find dirt on Miguel Baroque.

Sure, their non stop smear campaign for the last year has done nothing but boost the ex-senator's ratings, but the media was persistent.

These were the type of people that would do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

After 5 minutes of waiting, Miguel Baroque finally walked into the hall and took his place at the makeshift podium.

Miguel checked his watch and waited for a couple of seconds before starting his speach.

"My fellow Eldoradonians, I bid you good day. Unlike my usual speeches, this one will be short and to the point. Ahem. I have spent a good 30 years of my life in politics and I have realized something..... Our government cannot be saved."

Miguel's opening statement made the media and those who were watching via live stream double take in surprise.

If Miguel was anything, he knew how to catch the attention of his audience.

"Our goverment is rotten to the core by the money of criminals. Our law enforcement is a joke. Our media is nothing more than a whore that would glaldly spread her legs to the highest bidder. Parasites have been draining the hard work of our law abiding citizens. In its current state, the Eldoradonian government is beyond salvation."

Miguel paused for a bit, checked his watch then proceeded.

"However, I hold firm belief that Eldorado is a country worth saving. Our beautiful country, our enthusiastic citizens and our way of life is something I will fight and die to preserve. What I have come to understand is that I refuse to pass this cancer ridden country to the next generation."

Pause, check watch, resume.

"To cleanse our country of filth, we must take extremely drastic measures and we need to take them right now. To this end, I implore all of my fellow Eldoradonians to remain in their homes for the next 7 days. Avoid any area with affiliations to the Cartels. If you do live or work in such an area, vacate as soon as possible."

Pause, check watch, smile and resume.

"With the patriots of the armed forces and The Machine God as my allies, I hereby declare the comencement of Operation 'Cartel Purge'. And this will begin, riiiight abouuut... NOW!"

As if on que, the earth shook violently as the sound of numerous explosions echoed through out the city.

The conference hall was located on a decently sized hill, thus the people within it could simply just look out the glass walls to bare witness the events happening to the city bellow.

And boy, was it a sight to behold.

In the area of the city where the suberbian and the industrial districts met where a few fancy mansions and a lot of criminal activity. These were the strongholds and primary headquarters of 4 of the 10 biggest cartels in Eldorado.

The entire area was being subjected to an artillery barrage reminiscent of the second world war.

For the next 10 minutes, this area was at the recieving ends of hundreds of flechette rounds and M107 155 HE rounds fired from 105 mm howitzer batteries and Theo's SPA-403 Scorpion Siege Tanks.

Once the shelling ended, aproximately 50 CH-47 Chinooks flew over the desolate ruins and began dropping off a surprising mix of soldiers.

Half were soldiers that wore the same power armor as those in the Alkebulan nuclear incident.

The other half belonged to the Eldorado Armed Forces.

This part of the plan came quite a shock to Theo.

He didnt expect ER46 to propose allying up with the portions of the Eldoradonian law enforcement that hated the cartels with burning passion.

The Eisenritter took pride in their position as 'Theo's Elite Unit'. In fact, their pride in this moniker was so great that they end up becoming extremely elitist.

They even viewed the Reformant Units as inferior despite being technically equal in specs and armaments.

With such an over inflated ego, Theo expected them to perform this assignment with only their troops.

The fact that ER46 was someone who placed efficiency over pride made Theo swell in pride. It seemed that the Eisenritter may be good enough to lead full blown opperations without his guidance.

Thanks to the surplus in troops, the next step in the operation went faster than expected.

Upon touching down, the combined forces of the Eldorado Armed Forces and Theo's Reformants performed 'clean up' duties where they slaughtered any survivors.

And within 30 minutes of the annoucement, the cartels were effectively headless.

Just to be clear though, the Eldoradonian capital was not the only place where excessive miliary force was brought to bare.

All through out the country, Theo's forces worked in tandem with local law enforcement and military units to obliterate the cartel strongholds.

Some were pounded to bits by artillery. Others were the victims of B52 bomber strafing runs. Other still were at the recieving end of missle strikes from Eldoradonian submarines.

The largest catastrophe was in one of the cartel's mountain strongholds. Once a fortress used by the ancient Aztecs was coverted into the largest narcotic plantation farms and processing plant.

This area became the test site for one of Theo's newly improved weapon: a MOAB sized Purgatory Incendiary Bomb.

The fire spreaded quickly after the initial strike. In but a few minutes, nearly a thousand hectars of narcotics became a sea of flames.

These showed that despite the stranglehold the cartel had on the country's government, there were those who still believed in Eldorado's salvation.

Sure, they expected fierce political backlash from the cartel supporters, but such a thing was a small price to pay for obliterating Eldorado's cancer.

From this point onward was the fun part.

Clean up time.

-:-

While all of the festivities were in full swing, Theo was taking a theraputic ride to calm his nerves.

And there was nothing more theraputic than using a golf cart to run over some criminals.

At the moment, the power armor clad Theo was in a high class golf course to assassinate a couple of cartel bigwigs while they were distracted by the fireworks.

"RUN LITTLE BITCHES! RUN!" shouted Theo at the 3 women that was desperately running away from his golf cart of doom.

1 of them was the wife of some high level cartel lieutenant while the other 2 were actresses or something. He wasnt entirely sure.

Originally, he was targeting the cartel lieutenant himself but the chaos induced by the artilery strike led to a bit of confusion in the information network.

His original target died on his way to this location. Apparently, his car was crushed by a collapsing building during the artillery barrage.

A bit disappointing but such was life.

But all hope for a fun time was not lost, for the 3 bitches he was chasing after were more messed up than the cartel lieutenant.

These 3 belonged to the 'Cult of Beauty' which believed that bathing in the blood of virgin women allowed them to maintain their beauty.

FYI: These blood baths were actually effective thanks to the fickle and illogical nature of magic.

Fun fact: these 3 killed more people than most cartel members.

As such, Theo had every excuse to be as cruel as he want to be.

While enjoying the fear in panic on the three's faces, Theo's spy drones informed him that their guards have realized that he was there.

Finally, the fun can start.

As one of the bitches began to slow down due to exhaustion, Theo grabbed a golf club and bashed her on the knee as he passed by.

He caught up with the second bitch and ran her over. Sadly, the golf cart was not heavy enough to squash a person with one quick trample. It did break a couple of bones though.

As he approached the last one, he jumped out of the golf cart and tackled her to the ground.

"You asshole! Dont you know who I am?!" roared the woman.

Theo responded by gently breaking her nose with a right fist. He was a pround gentleman ya know?

He dragged the woman by her hair back to the golf cart which crashed into a nearby tree.

Using a strap he tore from one of the golf bags, he akwardly tied the woman in front of the windshield.

Instant meat shield!

Mind you, Theo could have just shot the 3 bitches with his Beretta ARX160 and be done with it.

But where's the fun in that?

Unfortunately, the bodyguards did not get the memo.

There were 3 AK47 wielding guards that just entered the field.

"What took you so long you idiots?! Hurry up and kill this dipsh-" said bitch #1 before the bodyguards went full auto and turn her into a bloody mess.

Much to Theo's shock, the bodyguards did not hesitate to pump bitch #1 full of lead.

They must really dislike her.

Annoyingly enough, they also gun downed the other 2 bitches.

"Oh come on! I was going to literally paint the town red with them!" roared Theo in frustration.

And just like that, all of his drive went down the toilet.

The bodyguards themselves were not particularly much of a threat.

The only reason they were able to hit the 3 bitches from a decently long range was using a simple gun fighting technique called 'Spray and Pray'.

Even a blind, brain dead, lobotomized monkey can hit something if he has enough bullets.

Juno is the living proof of this.

She was able to hit a target 10 meters away from her 3 times!

After firing 20000 rounds....

The point is this: These guys were slightly more accurate than Juno yet lacked her godlike CQC skills.

As such, they were no fun.

For the crime of being borring, Theo sentenced them to a quick and underwhelming death.

Theo stopped the golf cart, took aim and fired.

10 seconds later, they were all dead.

How boring.

"Tch... The festival is in full swing, yet I'm bored to death? Blasphemy!"

Theo shot bitch #1's corpse a couple of times while he pondered on how to entertain himself.

A few seconds later, a eureka moment.

He contacted ER46 via the coms.

"ER46, can you find someone for me?" asked Theo

"Yes my lord. Who might this person be?" replied ER46

"How is my brother Gregorio Lorne doing? Is he well?"

"Based on our latest information, Gregorio Lorne is currently hidding within the Fando-Kibris Royal Hotel in the business district of the capital. Since our artillery barrage was concentrated on the cartel strongholds, the business district remained relatively unscratched."

"The Fando-Kibris is that fancy 5 star hotel right?"

"Correct."

"Typical member of the Union of Nations. Wasting money that was suppose to be for humanitarian projects. There are countless orphans in the world and he's staying in a 1000 Rooks per night hotel? And they wonder why people hate the Union of Nations."

"I shall relocate some of our forces to eliminating this annoyance."

"Woah! Hold up! No no no. I forbid anyone to harm him. He is my food to play with."

"Understood. But if my lord is going to go after Gregorio Lorne, be warned that he has a superhero group currently serving as his bodyguards."

"Well... shit.... I didnt expect the Hero Alliance to openly side with the UoN."

"That is incorrect my lord. Based on the info we have recieved from the Eldorado military, it seems that this group has left the Hero Alliance 2 years ago to work exclusively for the UoN."

"Well now! That changes everything! Looks like I get to have fun after all!"