Chapter 59: Messed With My Neighborhood

Chapter 59: Chapter 59: Messed With My Neighborhood

Victor and Mira crouched atop a shipping container.

The abandoned warehouse spread below them, bigger than Victor had expected.

They were cargo trucks lined up along one side, a loose crowd of gang members milling near the main entrance.

"So," Victor whispered. "Remind me why we’re wearing black."

"Just trust me." Mira pulled her mask up over her nose. "You’re not the first Ranker to think about doing something the Central Guild wouldn’t exactly approve of."

"...Okay."

He studied her for a second, something uneasy settling in his gut. Was that concern about getting caught, or something closer to anticipation?

"Also," he added, "don’t forget. There is one retired C-Ranker down there, and two D-Rankers with him..."

She was already moving, dropping off the container before he finished the sentence. "Don’t lag behind."

Three men stood near the entrance, passing a cigarette between them. Mira crossed the distance in seconds, a baton already in each hand.

The first never saw it coming, a strike across the temple dropping him instantly. The second swung wide and sloppy, and she ducked under it, driving one baton into his gut hard enough to fold him in half.

But the third’s kick caught her square in the stomach.

She staggered back, coughing, and Victor’s stomach dropped watching it from a distance.

After all, that attack shouldn’t have landed. At least not on a C-Ranker, against some random gang muscle.

Mira spat to the side, a thin trail of something dark following the motion, more of the Dreamer working its way out of her system.

"Lucky shot." Her voice came out low, and dangerous. She wiped her mouth. "Let’s try that again."

She closed the distance before he could react, battons cracking across his knee, a sickening wet SNAP echoing off the walls as his leg bent wrong way

He screamed, and she didn’t stop there, following with a strike across his skull that dropped him instantly, blood already pooling beneath him.

Shouting erupted from deeper inside the warehouse.

"WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!"

More men came pouring out, this time with weapons, knives, a machete, one wielding a length of chain.

Mira turned back toward Victor, and even from this distance he caught the look in her eyes.

She’d asked to bring her daggers before they left, but he’d told her no. ’We’re teaching them a lesson, not killing anyone.’

They might get a scolding for doing things outside the law, but secretly a pat on the back for getting rid of a hood gang. But murder was a line the authorities will not want to see crossed.

Even with the blades in their hands, Mira didn’t hesitate. She dove straight in.

Victor pulled his own mask down and rushed after her, a baseball bat in hand.

He had gotten it from a convenience store on the way here.

He swung into the first man he reached, catching him across the ribs, the impact jarring up his arm as the guy went down hard.

Between the two of them, the warehouse floor became a blur of motion, bodies dropping one after another.

Mira had technic, and Victor was more, hit, break, and move on.

Deeper inside the warehouse, in a back office walled off with corrugated metal, a man sat at a card table, cigar wedged in the corner of his mouth.

His left sleeve hung empty, pinned at the shoulder, the limb gone entirely.

His right hand held his cards loosely, a half-finished beer sweating beside him.

He wore nothing but a stained white shirt, collar yellowed with old beer and sweat, the kind of wear that came from years of not caring anymore.

Across from him sat two other men, equally rough around the edges, faces carrying the particular exhaustion of people who’d lived too hard for too long, though none of them looked especially old. Around the room, a few unlucky souls were being worked over by standing gang members, the dull sound of fists on flesh a near-constant background noise.

"Heard we roughed somebody up a few streets over. Jack told me to expect, 500 thousand gils." one of the D-Rankers said, tossing a card down.

"Good. That boy’s working quite hard for a normie." The other added.

"Too bad he ain’t a Ranker."

"Yeah, too bad. But at this rate, I won’t mind paying the testing fee for him." The C Ranker commented.

The two D Rankers nodded.

"Cleavage gang’s doing good these days," the C Ranker spoke again, grinning around his own cigarette. "At this rate, we might actually retire early."

All three men laughed, low and easy.

Then the noise from outside reached them, shouting, and something crashing.

The one-armed man’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Idiots can’t handle a little noise without me." He waved a hand at the men standing guard near the door. "Go see what the hell’s going on."

They filed out.

A long minute passed.

Then the door slammed open with enough force to crack the frame, and a body came flying through it, skidding across the concrete floor and coming to a stop at the one-armed man’s feet.

It was... Jack.

His face was a mess of blood, one eye already swelling shut.

The one-armed man took the cigar slowly from his mouth, looking down at him, something cold settling behind his eyes.

They stepped past the wreckage of the warehouse floor, and in one corner Victor caught sight of two men propped against the wall, beaten nearly to nothing.

One had his chest carved open, the signature cleavage wound split clean down the center, flesh pulled back on either side. Across his forehead, written in his own blood:

PUNISHMENT.

Mira’s jaw tightened as she took it in. "Again...You should’ve let me bring my knives." Her voice came out low, flat. "Scum like this deserves to die."

"From what I can see," Victor said, eyes still on the two men, "you might not need them."

The three men around the card table had already risen, cigars discarded, eyes locked on the masked pair standing in the doorway.

"Who the hell are you two?" The one-armed man’s voice carried easy contempt. "Walking in here like you own the place. You have any idea whose territory this is?"

"It doesn’t matter." Victor stepped forward, boot landing squarely on the side of Jack’s bloodied face, pinning him flat. "You idiots messed with my neighborhood."

The one-armed man’s eyes dropped to Jack, then back up, something clicking. "...Ah. So it was your street we roughed up today."

He spread his one hand wide, almost conciliatory. "Tell you what. Let this go right now, and I’ll even forget the five hundred thousand Jack was supposed to collect from you. Walk out, we call it even."

"You’re still not getting it." Victor’s voice stayed level, cold. "By the time I’m done here, you’re the one paying ME five hundred thousand."

Mira didn’t wait for a reply.

"Enough talk." She was already moving, straight for the one-armed man, batons raised.

The two D-Rankers broke toward Victor simultaneously, closing the distance fast.