“Okay! Our first official gang meeting is now a go!” cheered Cecily.

“Question,” Ed raised his hand, “why’re you guys in our room?”

“Oh, that.” She answered, “Lune was kind enough to let us use this place as a base for the time being. Isn’t that right, Lune?”

That damned girl had the gall to actually smile at me as she said those words. Recounting the evening where she held a knife to my leg sent shivers down my spine, so as far as I’m concerned we were her slaves at the moment. Makes sense seeing as she possesses the Yellow Iro.

A Yellow Iro believes in the power of authority. They see the world as rotten and will stop at nothing to rectify the issue. Most leaders are, in fact, yellow iros, and if a child converts to yellow they will immediately be given proper leadership classes. This insures that a bad apple won’t ever get to the top. Apparently she was one of those bad apples…

“Lune, you sly dog, you. I see what’s going on here.” Ed nudged me with a giggle.

Ed, you have no idea. I couldn’t explain to him the current situation as the siblings were always following us around or splitting us apart, not giving me any moment to warn Ed. Either way, he’s willing to help them, and knowing his need to appease he might still go along with them even after hearing my warning. That being said, I chose to just leave the matter be and listen to their demands for now.

“If no one has any other questions,” Cecily continued, “we can begin with the first problem, our gang’s name!”

“The Red Lions!” barked Carter.

Too long and forgettable answered back Cecily. Sounds like he really wanted that name to stick, too.

“How about the Bilgam Revengers Gang? It sounds cool and can be abbreviated easily to boot.” Mentioned Ed.

No one really liked the idea of his name though, since technically speaking none of us were from Bilgam, and our whole plan is to control the entire underworld, so we needed something more general.

“Lune, got any ideas?” she asked me.

……..Adventure, Revenge, Authority…. I thought out loud, thinking up a good way to mix in our iro’s colors into the name, when they suddenly shouted in awe.

“That’s it! Adventure, Revenge, Authority! All the words are really cool sounding, the name’s catchy as hell and it signifies our goals! We want to get REVENGE on the country by COLONIZING and CONQUERING it! It’s perfect!”

“What? That wasn’t the name, I was just-”

“Who cares? I like it, so we’re going with it!” Cecily interrupted me.

As they were thinking up abbreviations for the name, as well as a fitting symbol, Ed pulled up close to my ear and whispered:

“Of course she would like your name. I get you wanna get on her good side, but isn’t doing all this for them a bit much, Grim?”

Apparently, he misunderstood my intentions. My goal was never to woo her, but rather to just make it out of the city with both my legs. I tried my best at explaining to him the actual situation in Entropic, seeing as the siblings don’t understand it, but they would immediately notice, probably by my tone of voice what I was saying to Ed, so they immediately started the next point in their little presentation.

“NEXT PROBLEM! You guys don’t know anything about the underworld, don’t you?” asked Cecily.

“Nope,” answered Ed, “not a lick of it.”

She probably expected that answer, but she was still disappointed, and with a sigh she started explaining:

“The gang territories are as such: we’ve got the gang’s that overlook the western part of the country, which includes Bilgam. The gangs situated here are Bilgam Brothers Gang and The Blue Lions. After that we have the gangs that are currently fighting over control in the central and eastern part of the country, those being The Great Hianics, Neo Urbana and The Gilgamore Gang. The reason we moved to Bilgam is because both of the western gangs’ bases are here. We know where to find them, which leads me to the next point…”

She explained all this without even pausing to breathe. I’m not sure if she studied this spiel in advance or if she’s just that passionate about the plan succeeding.

“Our battle plan is as such:” she continued, “First off! We pick a fight with The Blue Lions!”

“What?!?” both Ed and I protested.

“Listen ‘til the end! After we “pick a fight” with The Blue Lions and lose on purpose, we’ll head to join the Bilgam Brothers Gang. This way they’ll be more inclined to let us in, while also raising the tensions between the two gangs, leading to a gang war which’ll wear both gangs down!”

“Ohhh! I see, but didn’t you say we’ll start our own gang? If so, why join the BBG?” asked Ed.

“Don’t sweat the details. Also, are you advocating for the four of us to square off against the two gangs alone?”

Ed quickly shut up after his argument got destroyed by facts and logic.

After their presentation ended, we wanted to go to bed. But of course, another problem arose. Seeing as they were all but homeless just a short while ago, they had no spare clothes for sleeping. They didn’t really mind sleeping in their on-the-go clothes, but we did. You see, sleeping in dirty clothes… leads to dirty sheets, which in turn leads to us having to pay the inn more money for the cleaning. Ed gave Carter his, and I gave Cecily my spares as I made a point to go buy them some of their own tomorrow morning.

Ed and Carter seemed to have clicked in a really short amount of time, to the point they might’ve actually reached Ed and mine’s level of friendship. On one hand, I’m glad Ed’s made a friend on his own, on the other hand I’m a bit jealous.

Cecily felt a bit abrasive about wearing my pajamas, but ultimately gave in. Ed whispered something in my ear along the lines of wanna get Cecily to like you? and as I was telling him I’m not interested, she immediately noticed and snapped.

“What are you guys talking about?! I told you not to talk amongst yourselves like that! If you have something to say, say it to everyone!”

“Lune was just telling me how cute you look in his PJs!”

Wuh-?!? ED YOU FUCKING IDIOT SHE’S GONNA HANG ME. Even if I survive her onslaught, Carter’s gonna beat me up thinking I’m a pervert!

“O-oh… T-thanks.”

To my surprise, she blushed with all her might and went back to bed in a flustered sort of way. I can at least agree that that reaction was extremely cute, though. I guess since it’s Ed saying it with his good looks she didn’t get angry? Either way, I was somehow saved from her knife, but what about Carter?

Looking over to his bed, I saw his back turned towards us. With nothing but a raised thumbs up, I was allowed to live another day. Ed snickered to himself a bit then looked at me and said We got your back, bro. Go get her, tiger!

Apparently I had gotten not one, but two wingmen. The misunderstanding is spreading, but if I cleared things up now I’d definitely die, so I’ll let it be for now…

***

Waking up was a bit awkward due to last night’s events, but having more people with us is comforting. We got dressed and readied up to enact our grand plan. Well, first we went to eat breakfast. You can’t win a gang war on an empty stomach! We walked around town looking for good restaurants, noticing many faults with each one. The prices are all over the place here and the décor is horrendous there, voicing these problems lead to the siblings taking interest in Ed and mine critiques.

“How do you know so much about restaurants?” asked Cecily.

“Yeah, and who cares, anyways. As long ‘s the food’s good, I’m happy!” added Carter.

After regaling them of our tales from Trivis Numerica, as well as our time spent working at Arthur’s, Carter seemed interested while Cecily changed the topic.

“Bo-ring! Why work at a restaurant? Aren’t Green Iros supposed to seek adventure?” she scoffed.

“It’s novelty we seek.” Ed corrected her, “And in any case, why wouldn’t we help our benefactors?”

They didn’t really understand our good nature, instead mistaking it for naivety and moving on. We settled on the same restaurant we ate at yesterday, since it ended up being the best choice, and we knew what to expect.

I ate a standard meal: eggs and bacon. The eggs we generously spiced, leading to a very salty taste. I didn’t mind though, I liked overspicing my food so this was actually just perfect for me. Ed ate sausages with tomato sauce and and a side of salad to balance it out. It was hands-down the most beautiful presentation of food I’ve seen on a plate. Dipping the sausage into tomato sauce felt a bit weird to me, but apparently that’s just how he likes to eat them, and I’m surely not one to make fun of people’s idiosyncrasies.

Moving on to the siblings, Cecily definitely didn’t hold back in terms of price and ordered the steak. She seems to be a meat lover. We worried she’d get nauseous from so much cholesterol high foods, but she digressed. Even as she ate steak, she still took care to look prim and proper, using her utensils with her back straightened out. These little things add up in people’s eyes, and she knew that full-well. Carter on the other hand didn’t bother with the utensils, instead opting to order a chicken sandwich and eat with both hands. Certainly a more slovenly approach than his sister’s, but then again, eating a sandwich with utensils seems a bit odd.

As we sat around the table eating our food, Cecily spoke up:

“Edward, do you really think we can pull this off?”

“I’m sure we can, but you should really tell us the rest of your plan if you want to raise our chances. What’ll we do after we join the BBG?”

“Like I said,” she refuted, “don’t sweat the details. I’ll handle that part. Honestly, I asked you this because I’m not so sure how capable you are in your fighting ability.”

This worry of hers was understandable. We didn’t really seem that reliable in a fight, but then again I did fight a stray wolf on my own. I reassured her of my basic knight’s swordsmanship training, but she still wasn’t convinced.

“You’re not gonna be carrying a sword to a gang fight, at least not if you want them to pull out their weapons as well. For now, we’ll keep it to our fists.”

Even still, I have experience in the field, but she’s right, Ed isn’t really that much of a fighter. Alright then, here’s how we’ll do it:

“Ed, you’ll be in charge of the logistics side of things. You’ll be back in base, away from the front, thinking up strategies and helping negotiate with the other gangs!”

His eyes lit up at the prospect. Certainly, he was the least capable in a fight, and this way he could be more than helpful in the cause. Now that our positions in the gang were finalized, we headed out to The Blue Lions’ base in the hopes of lighting this spark into a full-blown forest fire.