There were many surprises in store for that night. One thing Scott did not expect was that upon parking his new van at his warehouse, a message window would appear citing his new acquisition. The firearms were either not registered or were not notable to the system, but the van was a different story.

Raid Aftermath Record.

Your foray into the enemy nation has led to the acquisition of a vehicle. This vehicle is now part of your faction assets.

Scott smiled broadly at the floating message window. He did not realize it at the time, but the system that provided him with this land after its usurpation also enforced his right to raid the enemy nation. Just like American forces might attempt to take this land back some day, or even another player, he could take things form America.

Land and buildings would need to be won through usurpation, tower defense encounters, for now unless it was personally owned property ceded to him by the faction members who owned it. Such actions counted as secession in defiance of current government structures. Notices would be filed, but as with usurpation it would take a while before anyone would receive those notices.

He looked over his van for a moment. It was slightly damaged and would need repairs. From what he could tell pretty much any item he acquired through a raid would be considered the same. He determined that it must be a way to quickly add items to the system for upgrade purposes.

The thugs only had a few hundred dollars on them, but their jewelry would be worth a bit as well. Most of it was fake, or low value metal, but there were two gold rings and a thick gold chain with a dollar sign on it. Synergy fodder, the lot of it. He would not risk selling it as is and having someone recognize it. As high-quality materials, though? It could be worth something.

Scott quickly stashed everything, except for the cellphones. He shifted into shadow form them moved many miles away from his current location before he began to tinker with them. He did not know if he would be tracked this quickly, but he could not take the chance that someone would discover his lair.

The phones provided quite a bit of information, and little of actual use. What he was looking for, however, was contacts and other things. Photos taken, that sort of thing.

Several hours passed while he checked each phone. Once he was satisfied with what he found, he made sure to wipe them of all prints. Scott shoved the phones into a plastic bag that he found in a trash can along the way and headed to the police station.

Unlike the last time that he was there, the police station was a lively place. Scott wrote a note and attached it to the bag, the shifted back into shadow form. He dropped the bag of phones off on their doorstep during an instant shift and then hauled ass out of the area.

There was nothing to tie the phones back to him, but the police could possibly use them in whatever case they were making. They were much better off in one piece and at the police station.

It had been a productive night, but it wasn’t over. The shadow flew up into the night sky and mingled with the clouds. There was enough darkness left in the night for him to take down another target, and thankfully there was a good one close to his lair.

Briefly, he wondered why the local drug dealers had not claimed the warehouse. Though, it seemed obvious in retrospect. The ownership of the location had not been clear. The last thing they would want would be for some distant relative of the people who used to own it to show up. It was also possible that it was simply forgotten. It was well out of the way, after all.

Given who their boss was, it would be easy to buy out most of the out of the way places on the outskirts of town through proxies. That guaranteed fewer people would snoop around, despite the smell.

Six miles north of his new lair, Scott spotted the small unassuming roadside bar. He recognized the place more by reputation that anything else. It was a private members’ bar for bikers. Invite only.

It was thought of as a seedy dive, but the cops were never called out there. That was the rumor that he would hear occasionally at Archers.

The purloined thoughts of the dead thugs gave rise to new insight. This place was a front for the meth dealing and other criminal business in town. The bikers who frequented the place were runners hauling around all manner of things. Guns. Drugs. Organs. Even entire women, and not just their organs.

Another van like the one he acquired earlier sat behind the building, and two bikes were lined up out front. They weren’t the low-riding Harleys that one might expect, but fast sport bikes. Crotch rocket. Rice burner. They were not the sort of bikes one would expect at a place like this given its supposed members.

Scott flowed down to the ground, and then into it. He left enough of his mass above the surface to view the area then slipped into building. The thoughts of the occupants, another six people, infiltrated his senses.

They were late. The men who had gone to retrieve those women were late.

Time was still on his side. Hours had passed, but the world still worked mostly as it always had. It could take a while before news got out properly regarding what had happened.

Using dark judgment was out as an option. While he had recharged earlier, most of it had been spent on the other group. This time, he would have to settle for good old-fashioned assault.

Scott drank in their thoughts for a moment, let the stench of their souls clog his nostrils. Anger welled up within his heart. There were no innocents here tonight, but these things who claimed to be men kidnapped people whenever possible.

It was the seedy underbelly of even a small city, people in high government positions profiting from crime while pretending to be for the people. He could stand it no longer. These people were not like his stepfather. He did not need to prove their guilt to the world to give anyone peace. They were monsters in the form of men.

There was something to be said for the attitude of the colonel that he captured earlier. His thoughts had never once insinuated that he knew such things as this were happening in town. He saw monsters and did not care if they were human. Scott, a monster himself, saw monsters in that same way in this moment. The difference between them was solely one of information. Scott knew these men were corrupt. The colonel was just paranoid, albeit with good reason.

“Look,” said a man with a bandana tied around his head. “I’m just sayin’.”

“I know what you’re sayin’ dammit!” shouted another man. He stood behind the bar with his arms crossed over his chest. “We wait to hear from someone until a half hour before we’re supposed to open. You know how this shit works.”

Whatever the other men were going to say was lost in translation as they each released an inarticulate screech of panic. They proved ridiculously simple to deal with while they writhed on the floor. Scott stomped them to death with a few quick strikes. Less than half a minute of high-pitched screaming. That was the entirety of the battle. Men who thought themselves beyond the touch of the law. Me who thought themselves free to do whatever they wanted to do. Such men died screaming under the boot heel of a man in search of money and treasure.

“Now, this is more like it!” exclaimed Scott as he set about looting the place. The register was empty, but the safe proved quite easy to tear into. Guns. Drugs. Booze. Stacks of cash. All manner of personal bling.

Scott took every piece of paper. Every phone. He took everything he could find that seemed to be some sort of evidence, and he quickly moved it to the nearby van. While he would have loved to take the furniture and other things, he did not have the room or the time. He did, however, rip the big screen television off the wall and even tore the bar free from its moorings.

“How convenient…” he said with a grin, after he noted a pull trailer behind the bar. The sun would rise soon, but not before he hitched the trailer and loaded the bikes onto the back.

The naked corpses in the bar were left as the brutal testimony of what had transpired. Though, he did not leave before setting the place on fire. He refused to leave it for the assholes to start up again later.

The overloaded van drove down the street, two crotch rockets in the pull trailer and a cherrywood bar strapped down to the top. In the driver’s seat, a disturbingly self-satisfied man grinned like an idiot. Killing monsters and raiding their nests on Earth was just as much fun as it was in the dream! Sure, he did not like to kill people, but he did not feel particularly bad about what had just happened, either.