Chapter 19: Paradox of Entailment

Julius leaned up against the brick wall that towered up right behind him, the foul-smelling alleyway between two buildings providing a little cover from the outside world as he prepared himself. The sun had just peeked up over the horizon a handful of secundas ago, marking the very early morning. Another long, but highly profitable, day of slinging imperium lay in front of him, the civilians of Wayneton his customers to distribute among. Activity right now was sparse, with most people still in bed, but soon the streets would be packed with potential buyers.

He pushed away from the wall, looking down the alley out towards the street to the north. He had taken maybe two steps out towards the street when suddenly a blond man with a long ponytail, wearing a thick green vest, started approaching him. Julius slowed to a halt, immediately alerted to potential danger. This alley wasn't used by people all that often, due to how damp and rancid it was, so anyone other than him utilizing the concrete pathway was immediately suspicious to him.

As he got closer, he noticed the reflective sunglasses covering his eyes. He turned himself around to look down the other side of the alleyway, seeing nobody behind him. Figuring things couldn't get too dicey from just one person, he turned back.

"Morning," the stranger said, looking up towards the skies. "Pretty good morning so far, ain't it?"

"I got somewhere to be," Julius grumbled, hoping he could intimidate his way out of this.

"So, this is where you keep it, huh?" He looked around the alley, from wall-to-wall. "Not bad. Would take me awhile to find it, what with all the loose bricks these walls must have, plus the dumpsters. Might take all morning. And then I'd smell awful when I'm done. Might not even be able to find it. Sure would be a lot easier for me if you just pointed it out."

"I got no idea what you're talking about, now scram," Julius said darkly, moving forward to try to get around the blond.

"We could do it that way," he said mysteriously. "We could." He shuffled over a step to the right to keep in front of Julius. "You say you don't know what I'm talking about, I say that I know you're dealing the clear stuff. You deny it and try to push past me or maybe try to run the other way, I tell you to hand over whatever you're holding or else. We could do that, see where that goes. Or, you could just go get your stash, hand it over, and walk away."

"Asshole, move it before I—"

"You do that, my friends on the roof armed with long-distance firearms wouldn't have to get involved." He pointed up above his head. "They'd sure appreciate that. Not having to waste bullets. I mean, times are hard, every little expense counts."

Julius froze at that proclamation. Slowly, after taking a couple steps away from the man, he tilted his head up, trying to find signs of anyone standing up on the roof. It was several stories up, and the angle made it difficult to be sure if anyone was actually there or not. He didn't see anyone, but he couldn't be sure, it would have been trivial for someone to hide behind the ledges up above.

"And, I mean, odds are at least decent we'd just get what we want anyway after combing through this alley," the man continued. "So honestly, the choice should be pretty easy for you."

Julius held silent, eyes darting back and forth, hands in his pockets.

"You take off the other way, you try to attack me, they get involved. This isn't a road you should be going down." The man slipped his own hands into the pockets of his vest. "You got people in your life that you care about? Children, wife, whatever?"

Julius blinked a couple times, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. "I—"

"Let me help you out here, buddy. I'm trying to help. Here's what you should do now. You go to wherever you hid your stash of imperium, you hand it over to me, and then you go home to whoever it is in your life that you value. And every few years, for the rest of your life, you're gonna look at those people. Look at their faces. And you'll think, I'm getting to do this right now, because I chose to not walk down a particular path on a particular morning."

Julius swallowed down hard, tightly grimacing, pressing his lips together.

"This is one of those paths that you shouldn't go down, man." He reached up to tug his glasses down his nose a little bit, looking at him without the benefit of the reflective surfaces hiding part of his face. "In the old days, they used to put warnings on maps. 'There be dragons here'. Nowadays, those warnings aren't there anymore. But sometimes, the dragons are."

Julius glanced upward yet again, trying to see something up on the roofs, but to no avail.

"I'm gonna start walking down the alley now. And you're going to follow me, you're going to give me your stash, and then we go our separate ways."

A short silence, nothing but the ambiance of the early morning filling the air. Just a couple of beats.

"Yes, or no?"

"

Julius threw the lid off the black rectangular dumpster, releasing a foul stench as he did so. Partially empty food containers, worn clothing, broken toys, the variety of things that could be found inside was wide. What you might not have expected, however, was to find more than sixteen thousand creds worth of refined imperium. Which is what made it just perfect as a hiding place, so long as the garbage collectors didn't come by a few days early.

"Ugh! Oh, that's foul," the stranger said, putting his hand up over his nose. Julius weathered the stench, reaching his hands down and pushing a few items to the side, digging down into the dumpster, until he uncovered a little bundle of silver cloth, taped securely to the dumpster wall. He ripped it off, then turned around and slammed it into the stranger's palm.

"Good choice," the man said, unraveling the bundle of cloth until he was able to peer inside at a stack of paper envelopes and a collection of imperium shreds. Without another word, he walked off to the north, leaving Julius standing there, trying to figure out how he was going to explain this.

"

"Despite re-branding and altering the business model slightly, sales are up four percent since acquisition, plus an additional one percent from fake purchases I drummed up. Minus re-opening costs, minus additional inventory costs, overall profit is down seven percent from the last period under previous ownership. Early projections of next period, up to approximate equilibrium with prior periods." Zoisite stared down at the small square of white lined paper in his hands. "Approximately thirty thousand creds washed so far, current period expect similar results."

Endymion leaned his head back on the headrest of the couch, arms crossed over his chest, his facial features caught somewhere between a scowl and a pout. Zoisite faltered just a bit, glancing over to his private chambers' bookshelf, before looking back at his charge.

"I-It's good news!" he insisted, putting his hands at his sides. "We renamed the store, changed the design, everything! Trust me, when businesses rebrand like this, they typically lose at least thirty percent of the previous clientele and take cycles to gain the business back! The fact that it's barely fallen off in the period immediately following transition, trust me, it's—"

Kunzite gently put his right palm out towards Zoisite from the couch to the left of the Prince. "His Majesty is...perturbed by other issues right now. Your work on running the business is exemplary, Zoisite, and I assure you the Prince is thrilled with what you've done."

Zoisite started furtively at Endymion for a moment. "T-thank you," he mumbled, sidestepping away, though unable to not notice the Prince giving Kunzite an unpleasant glare out of the corner of his eyes.

"Nephrite, anything you'd like to say?" Kunzite prompted over at the burly brown-haired guardian. As typical, the four had gathered in Zoisite's private chambers, the modest room serving well as a secure place to meet.

Nephrite shrugged. "Last five days, estimate fourteen libras moved. Estimate thirty-one point eighty-five million creds, no new arrests. Trivial loss due to weighting errors, plus some theft."

Endymion seemed to snap to life at this final word, face wrinkling as he looked over at Nephrite. "What was that? Trivial loss?"

"W-well, some of the weighing my men have been doing has been slightly imprecise, so occasionally a carat or a fraction of a carat goes unaccounted for. We're smoothing that process out so it doesn't happen in the future—"

"N-no," Endymion said, putting his hands on his knees. "I don't care about that part, the other thing you said. What was that?"

Nephrite's face rankled a bit. "In the last day, we've had a few incidents of our street dealers getting robbed in Wayneton. They get cornered, threatened, and they have to give up whatever they're holding."

"Go on," Endymion ordered, leaning forward slightly.

"It happened once last night, twice this morning. Total loss, thirty carats." Nephrite hesitated for a brief moment. "Your Highness, the men who got robbed are all solid, trust me. They just got put in bad situations and had to make a decision with their life hanging in the balance."

"I understand that," Endymion said sternly. "I'm not criticizing your men, Nephrite. Just, maybe, your decision to treat this as a footnote. Thirty carats, that's forty-five thousand creds."

"Fairly trivial," Kunzite said, entering the conversation in Nephrite's defense. "Compared to the money we're making and stand to make. A little bit of theft in this line of work has to be regarded as acceptable. Remember, we're a new distribution network, people are going to take swipes."

Endymion's neck muscles tightened up a bit. "Maybe. I can understand that," he said, voice easing up a bit. "They swipe. I'm just wondering why we're just...shrugging it off and turning the other cheek, instead of swiping back."

"Given the nature of these robberies, it's highly likely that they were conducted by people with experience," Nephrite explained. "Not just random civilians. Most likely, all three robberies were conducted by the same criminal outfit. Trying to swipe back could be difficult, and could have more serious ramifications down the road."

"Oh," Endymion replied dryly. "Difficult. Well, you've certainly convinced me. Difficult things can't possibly be worth doing. I mean, who ever thought that distributing imperium could ever be difficult?" He gave his head a violent shake. "Let's walk through this, Nephrite. We get robbed once last night, twice this morning. Four times tonight, seven times tomorrow morning, thirteen times tomorrow night, you see where I'm going? You see the problem here?"

"Um…" Nephrite, typically stoic and even-keeled, was visibly shaken by Endymion's words. "Y-Your Highness, I seriously doubt we'll see anything like that."

"And what kind of message are we sending to your men?" Endymion gave Nephrite a judgemental look. "You get robbed, have someone threaten your life, and the people who put you out there, in that position, just shrug their shoulders and pretend like it didn't happen? How are they supposed to feel about that? You think they'll be motivated to keep putting themselves out there, knowing that their boss won't stick up for them?"

"E-Endymion, maybe we should wait and make sure that the problem is actually significant enough to be worthy of this effort," Kunzite suggested frantically. "Remember, we—"

"Kunzite. Nephrite." Endymion stood to his feet. "I will not have my distribution network get bullied without consequence. I will not wait for our dealers to be targeted by every competitor and criminal out there, just looking for an easy mark that won't fight back. You two find out who did this, and you handle it. That's an order."

Before he could farm a reply from either general, he marched off towards the door to his right, departing Zoisite's private chambers in what could easily be construed as an angry huff.

The three guardians of the Crown Prince of Earth stood there, postures tightly constricted, before sharing a collection of glances between each other.

"That wasn't the reaction I was envisioning after telling him that he just made thirty-two million in five days," Zoisite said under his breath, hurriedly shuffling over towards his bed and sitting down on the edge of it.

"It has nothing to do with us," Kunzite said quietly. "He's just frustrated with other things right now. Trust me, given what we have to work with, we are all doing stellar jobs."

"Nevertheless, we can't exactly ignore an order like that, now can we?" Nephrite pointed out.

Kunzite, with a hesitant grumble, nodded. "Well, on the brightside, it's not as if I get that many opportunities to use my training in actual combat situations."

"

Kunzite sighed, pushing his hair out of his face, looking down at the pure-white undershirt splayed out on the table in front of him. He had removed his uniform, as well as the light grey undershirt he had beneath it.

"That sucker will stop a knife," Nephrite said. "Maybe not a direct stab from a strong enough guy, but most of the time, not getting through."

Kunzite reached down to the white shirt and pulled it up over his head, feeling the fabric with his palms after putting it on. "How about plasma rounds?"

"Not so much," Nephrite admitted. "You put the grey one back on though, and you should be able to survive one. Takes out a lot of the penetration, plus disperses the concussive blast. Anywho, here."

Kunzite turned around, looking to the other side of the darkened, plain room. Nephrite stood there, flanked by two tall, wide-shouldered men. One with black hair, the other with brown hair.

"This is Cassius, and this is Rufus," Nephrite explained. "Both of them served in the army previously. Both trained in firearm usage and hand-to-hand. They're both solid. If you give me a couple days, I could round up some more help, but these two were nearby."

"We'll only need four," Kunzite assured Nephrite. "I'm not looking for a bloodbath."

"About that," Nephrite said. "It's been looked into. All three thefts were carried out by the same entity, like I suspected. Crime syndicate, a family operation. Mostly, they deal in stolen vehicles. Speeders, bikes. Now, they're not exactly the Collegium, but they do operate out of a large compound about four dolichos outside of the city. Couple of acres, armed guards, camera coverage, flatland, very few trees. Probably about thirty people there at any given time."

"Then we'll just have to be precise," Kunzite replied. "You two, you're capable of being precise?" He bent down over the table to grab his grey undershirt, slipping it on over the top of the white one.

"Yes, sir," Cassius answered. Nephrite, meanwhile, went over to the western wall of one of his many safehouses. After a moment of thought, he punched his fist right into the wall, denting a large section of plaster. He slammed his hand into the section of wall again, managing to get a rectangular section of it to be pushed back a slight amount. He reached into the recess and grabbed the grooves on the sides. With a large heave, he pulled an elongated, wooden box out of the wall, letting it slam down to the concrete floor.

"We knockout cameras from a distance, get them scrambling. We keep quiet, we get inside the compound and we get to their leadership. We break some bones, maybe wreck some equipment, but we're there for what we're owed. Hundred grand, that's what we need for this to be worth the time. If we can get more, great. But we get that, we're out of there. We leave nothing behind, nothing that can trace to us. That's it. I want a minimal bodycount. One or two, I understand, it happens, but I'm not interested in leaving behind a trail of bodies."

Nephrite knocked the lid off the long box, exposing a container loaded with assorted guns, knives, gadgets, and electronics.

"Ballistics?" Rufus questioned as Nephrite lifted up a long rifle with a black scope mounted atop it and a black tube attached to the tip. "What are we, cavemen?"

"Primitive, but silent," Kunzite explained as Nephrite tossed him the large weapon. "Plus, customizable. Gear up, everyone."

"

Endymion's nude form was splayed out, face-down, on the green cushioned table, his face placed into a small hole and a small towel covering his behind. A muscular blonde woman was digging her hands into his shoulders, squeezing and kneading into his flesh.

Endymion gave a couple little groans, still scowling down at the floor, unable to truly let himself go under the ministrations of his personal masseuse, nor be really relaxed by either her or the soft, gentle, ambient music in the background.

"You seem particularly tense today, Your Highness," she commented, really pressing her strong fingers into the shoulders and neck area of the Prince.

"You've said that every session the last cycle," Endymion mumbled, closing his eyes.

"I mean even in comparison to that," she said warily. "Nervous about becoming a father?"

"Sure, let's...go with that," Endymion replied. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Understood, Your Highness." She paused for a moment. "Haven't seen Serenity in a bit. Kind of surprised, what with her being so close to giving birth, I thought she might be calling on me even more."

Endymion grumbled to himself. "It's a mystery."

She gave a little laugh. "Alright, Your Highness, you ready for me to work on the knots in your lower back? I have no idea where they all came from, you sleep on that mattress every night. And you're certainly not working in a coal mine or anything."

"Yet another mystery," Endymion said dryly. "Go ahead."

She moved down Endymion's body, pressing her elbow into a spot right by his lower spine, putting her full body weight down. Endymion grunted, gritting his teeth a bit.

"

The Bloody Spears criminal syndicate had been around, in some form or another, for about a hundred years. Born when a couple of brother, having immigrated from Jupiter, could find no legal means by which to make a living, they had begun working for a shady vehicle mechanic. Back then, the two siblings would steal an unattended or insufficiently locked-up automobile or speeder every few days and sell it for scrap. Nowadays, not only did their operation involve several vehicles a day, across half a dozen different towns and cities, they also dabbled in 'protection' for local businesses, drug smuggling, loansharking, and whatever else could prove profitable. Large and powerful enough now to intimidate local law enforcement into giving them a wide berth, as well as wealthy enough to bribe the people that needed to be, they were among the more successful family crime rings.

Truth be told, they had chosen to stay far away from imperium smuggling, as the last thing they needed was a third party group like the agency to go after them, and they had a good thing going as it was. However, when they had been approached with an opportunity to figuratively take candy from a baby, and pick off dealers of a brand new distribution ring that was unprepared to defend themselves, they couldn't turn it down.

"Me and Dietrich made the rounds through Herbouten, father," Severus said, bending over in front of his dad and placing his finger down on the thick, open book in front of him, running his finger down a couple of lines. "Collection entries are here, in line with expectations."

The old man seated at the table nodded, his expression behind his large grey mustache remaining stoic and harsh.

"And, right below that, we have the new business concerns. The end columns are empty because we haven't sold the product yet, but we should be able to get at least twenty grand for it." Severus stood back up straight.

"Get rid of it fast," Tatius grumbled. "We get caught with it, there's going to be trouble. Could be the end of us if we get caught with it. Still not sure getting involved was wise."

"It's easy money," Severus protested. "And we'll get rid of it fast, we've got people on the coast who will take it off our hands. Our source also gave us dealers who operate in all other locations we have a presence. We'll make several hundred thousand creds easily, with basically no effort and no risk."

"Taking the chance of the Galactic Imperium Agency bringing a giant mallet down on our heads is not no risk, not where I come from," Tatius insisted. "Get—"

The wooden door into the kitchen suddenly was thrown open, a short portly man wearing a red leather jacket and large sunglasses stepping inside. Both the patriarch of The Bloody Spears syndicate and the most immediate heir paused, looking over.

"Uh, we're losing our cameras," he said, pointing his thumb up over his shoulder. "The compound, the cameras are going dead."

"Dead?" Severus repeated, instinctively widening his stance in preparation for a potential threat.

"Y-yeah, it's...it's like, they're losing power, but one at a time," the man explained. "The drones, too."

"Alert the men, tell them to gear up," Severus said, charging rapidly towards the man. "Show me. The drones run on battery power, so it's not the grid. And we've still got power in here, so it's not a pulse bomb." The two younger men strode off purposefully, quickly jumping onto a staircase and taking the steps three at a time.

Within beats, they were up on the second level of the primary residence on the compound, slipping into a room just to the left of the staircase. About thirty small screens were mounted on the far wall of this room, with a massive control panel full of buttons, levers, and joysticks in front of it and a chair set up before all of it.

In the top left corner, several of the screens were black. Otherwise, all of the others displayed various live videos of various parts of the compound. Many of them outside, a few of them showing the inside of rooms and warehouses.

One of the external cameras suddenly went dead, displaying nothing but a black screen.

"Seems like it's all of the southern side cameras," the man explained, pointing up at the field of black screens.

Severus grunted. "I want a dozen men sweeping to the south. We're getting raided."

Another one of the screens went dead.

"

Kunzite lowered the scope of the long rifle from his right eye, looking out at the open flat grassy field from a handful of paces inside the thick treeline. Down on one knee to steady his aim, he slowly scanned the expanse before him, eyes on the several buildings and houses spread out in the field.

"They must have noticed by now," Kunzite said quietly. "I don't see anything yet."

"The pulse charge is ready to be deployed," Nephrite's voice buzzed into Kunzite's ear.

"Once you fire it off, get to the main residence fast," Kunzite instructed. "They'll certainly realize what's going on as soon as it blows." He lifted the rifle up to his eye again, scanning one of the distant warehouses, tapping his finger on the scope to zoom in. With a twitch of his finger, he pulled back on the trigger, firing a tiny metal disc through the air at the side of a slowly-rotating camera. It slapped against the electronic device, adhering itself to the side, getting it to slump over as its power was sapped by the projectile. "Alright, I'm getting out of here, listen for my go-ahead."

Kunzite turned to the left and marched off, staying within the treeline, keeping an eye out towards the open field of the compound. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out a black piece of clothing, pulling it up over his head, masking everything about his face outside of his eyes and mouth.

"

"Who's dumb enough to try to raid us?!" Severus shouted, watching the first-person camera feed of one of the armed men advancing to the south, trying to make out something of note through the mediocre quality of the video.

"I-I should be o-out there!" Marcus snapped, looking up over his older brother's shoulder at the screen. "I-I s-s-should be...p-protecting...for the family!"

Severus glanced over his shoulder. "Over my dead body, you should be out there." He gave a furtive glance down at his younger brother's left hand, unnaturally tiny and deformed, as well as awkwardly twisted up. "We got a dozen men out there, you think they need a bum armed stutterer?"

"I...I-I can...I can f-f-fire a gun! I can f-fight!" Marcus insisted, face twisted down into a scowl.

"Go see mom!" Severus ordered. "Make sure she's okay and knows what's going on."

Suddenly, a couple of powerful lights popped on off in the distance on the camera feed. A bit into the treeline. Soon, rapid gunfire was sounding off, from both the speaker on the screen on the wall, and off in the distance. The dozen men began to return fire over towards the treeline, launching off rapid fire plasma pulses.

"Sounds like a lot of them," Flavius said, jogging over to the nearby window out in the hallway and craning his neck to look out as far as he could into the distance.

"Just gonna be a bloodbath," Severus mused. "There's no cover out there, I don't like this."

"That's why the pawns go out into the field and the lords stay in the castle," Flavius replied, looking over at Marcus. "See what we mean?"

Severus put his hand up to his ear, pressing lightly into a small piece of equipment lodged into it. "Try to close the distance to the treeline as fast as possible, you guys are sitting ducks out in that field. Put pressure on them."

On command, the field troops began to jog across the flatland, continuing to fire plasma bursts off into the direction of the gunfire.

"Are they using ballistic weapons?" Flavius asked. "It's not plasma, that's for sure."

"How have they not hit anyone?" Severus asked. "It's twelve men in an open field with no cover!"

"Well, what the hell is going on out there?!"

The three brothers all looked over at the entrance to the surveillance room, Tatius standing there in the threshold, scowling deeply.

"I—"

At once, every single screen in the room went black. Severus winced as his earpiece gave a strong crackle before dying. The lights in the room also darkened, with the lights in the hallway soon to follow.

"What in the—" Flavius yelled, leaning over the handrails on the staircase and looking down at first floor foyer, seeing the lights out down below as well.

"Pulse," Severus spat. "They're not coming from the south, that's a distraction!"

"W-w-w-we...we gotta...g-gotta—" Marcus tried to get out, face positively pulsating with effort as he tried to get his say out. He was, however, quickly waved off by Severus.

"Go see mom!" he ordered, storming out of the surveillance room. "I'm sure they're coming from the north, whoever we have left needs to prepare to protect from that direction!"

"Call the men back!" Tatius growled, the senior member of the family beginning to get highly agitated by the out of control situation.

"We can't! Communications are out!" Severus shouted. "We'll have to do this the old fashioned way! Round everyone in the house up and tell them to prepare to defend the north!"

Everyone suddenly ducked their head down when a couple of booming explosions sounded off.

"

Nephrite, wearing a face-concealing black mask, watched the two explosions kick up dirt and splinter a few trees, up on the northern side of the treeline. He, Cassius, and Rufus were nowhere near that particular chaos, of course, instead planning an assault from the west.

"Alright, move!" Nephrite ordered, sprinting forward, a short blocky rifle in his right hand and the corner of a large sheet that was wrapped up tightly in a compartment sewed into the back of his outfit in the left. His two assistants sprinted alongside him, quickly crossing the flatland, looking up towards a warehouse a couple hundred paces away, which would provide momentary cover and a chance to gather their bearings.

"

Endymion laid back on the luxury red couch in his bedroom, head up on the armrest and pillow underneath his shoulders, eyes closed. In the afterglow of his massage, he was trying to rest and relax, but didn't care to get into his bed next to Serenity to do it. But, in perhaps a display of passive-aggressiveness, as well as immaturity, he had decided to make sure he was in his room. So, he lingered there, wanting to make his presence felt without actually engaging with her.

Serenity, looking over from the bed, gave a little sigh, staring over at his prone figure. Her fingers interlaced atop her bulging stomach, she blinked a couple times. At her left side was her closed book, waiting for her to dive back into it. But, as she thought, she wasn't sure she wanted to.

With some effort, she wormed herself off the side of the bed and slid to her feet. Despite her considerable gain in size in recent cycles, she was able to move across the room without disturbing her husband's attempt to sleep. She went up behind him, near his head, and carefully reached down. With a firm, yet non-violent pressure, she placed her fingers on Endymion's temples and began to swirl her fingers against this sensitive spot. Endymion's eyes popped open, startled for perhaps a brief moment, before just staring up into her eyes.

Serenity had a bit of a forlorn look on her face, a sort of peaceful sadness that made him feel bad for her. It was the best look she had given her in over half a cycle. It had to represent something, at the least.

"Survival training?" Serenity asked, tilting her head slightly.

Endymion, taking just a beat to gather himself, slowly nodded his head. "I know it's hard to believe. Truth be told, I don't blame you for having your doubts. But that's really, truly, seriously all it is. Just a silly, old-fashioned tradition that I had to carry on."

She stood back up straight, Endymion just resting there, tilting his head back to look at her.

"Well, honey, I was thinking I might...take you up on your offer," Serenity said vaguely, absentmindedly running her hands across her stomach.

"Hm?" Endymion gave a tiny smile, his body relaxing down into the cushions slightly. "What offer are you talking about?"

"Before you left. You said that, when you got back, you'd be able to show me how to make a fire from scratch?" Serenity reminded him.

Endymion's internal panic was, luckily, externally expressed as nothing more than a twitch of a vein on his neck and a clenching of his fists at his sides, neither of which Serenity seemed to notice.

"

"Son of a bitch, you know what?" Severus growled, holding a large, short-barreled pistol in his right hand, looking out the window of the kitchen. "You know what I think? Those explosions from the north were just a distraction too!" He looked over at a man in a suit, standing over by the door to the pantry. "Where's our communications, Seneca?! Are they back yet?!"

"Everything is still dead!" Seneca responded frantically. "These people, they've got some state of the art gear!"

Tatius slammed his fist down on the counter. "Shit! I knew getting involved in imperium was a bad idea!"

"How can this be them?" Severus countered. "We had good intel that they were a brand new group!"

"S-send m-m-me out!" Marcus managed to croak out, walking into the room from the adjacent hallway, a slight hitch in his gait. "I-if you t-t-t-think that—"

"Marcus!" Severus shouted. "For the last time, I am not going to let you go out there and get yourself killed, because that's all that would happen! We are dealing with professionals! Why aren't you with mom?!"

A single man wearing a flat-brimmed hat and a brown jacket, holding a fat-barreled firearm in both hands, nearly shoved Marcus to the side as he entered the room.

"Oh, good!" Severus said. "Nero, I don't know where these people are coming from, but I have a feeling it's not from the north or the south. We need to bunker down in the house and figure out what we're actually up against! Communications are down, we need somebody to run over to the platoons we sent out and get them to come back." He pointed over at Nero. "You go south, Flavius goes north."

Nero nodded.

"Dad, go get mom," Severus continued, pulling back the small little lever on the barrel of his firearm to check it. "Take Marcus, get down into the basement. Stay down there until this is over."

Nero needed no further instruction, running over to the back door out of the house, reaching down to rip it open by the knob and then sprinting outside. Out in front of him was a concrete path cutting through the grass field, going off about fifty paces before ending. Knowing that he was quite possibly running right into a hail of gunfire, he went into a dead sprint, boots beating a path down the concrete.

He got maybe ten steps before a patch of the grass seemingly lifted upward in front of him, prompting him to skid to a sudden halt. He was just able to make out his dull grey uniform and black face mask, as well as the pistol in his hand with a slender tube attached to the mouth, before he was shot in the back of the head.

A few steps behind him, a second man had emerged from what, at first glance, seemed to be just another patch of green grass, using the element of surprise to quickly shoot him. Little more than a couple of dull little thunks, and a couple of iron projectiles had lodged themselves into Nero's skull.

Meanwhile, the first man had pointed his weapon over towards the back door of the house, just as Flavius had sprinted out bearing an assault rifle in both hands. Not willing to take the chance of allowing him to start using it, he fired his silenced pistol three times at Flavius, hitting either side of his chest before blasting the third one into his forehead, just as he was coming out onto the concrete path. Flavius fell into a heap on the floor, dead before he contacted the ground.

A third figure sprung up from the ground, whisking the cleverly-designed sheet off his prone body to reveal that what seemed to be a patch of grass was in fact a camouflaged square of fabric that would fool people on a first, passive glance. He pointed his own weapon up towards the doorway, prompting both of the other two men to quickly advance on it. Although Nephrite was slightly rankled that the objective of keeping the body count to zero had already been ruined, he was happy that both of his assistants on the day had not hesitated to shoot to kill when necessary. He followed his two men, the portal into the primary residence of The Bloody Spears waiting for them.

Cassius and Rufus, pistols out and ready to be fired at the merest hint of applied pressure, stormed into the kitchen, quite fortunate to find only two men in the immediately vicinity. One of them had his back turned, pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants, looking out into the hallway on the other side of the room. The other, a man in a suit, was standing in the corner, fighting with a small tablet screen, distracted by this futile effort.

"Downstairs!" Severus shouted, looking down the hallway. "All three of you, bunker down, and—"

Cassius shot a single bullet down into the floor right by Severus's feet, getting him to rip himself around and instinctively reach for his gun. But, on finding himself staring right down the barrel of another one, he was quick to realize that such would only lead to his demise, and slowly brought his hands back out in front of him.

Rufus, meanwhile, covered Seneca, training his pistol on him, which was enough to cause him to drop his tablet in a hurry and put his hands up in the air by his head. All in all, it was a welcome sight that Nephrite had in front of him when he entered the kitchen.

"You've got two dead men right outside this door," Nephrite announced. "I'm really not interested in making it more. Truth be told, I wish it was still zero. But, ultimately, it depends on how you feel about it."

A few silent beats passed. And then, the wrinkled, wizened face of the patriarch of the family peered around the corner of the hallway, immediately recoiling at the sight of three masked men pointing guns. Slowly, Severus twisted his head to look at his father, finding the stubborn defiance of a senior citizen in his glare. And then, his focus was taken by something else, down the hall.

"M-Marcus, put the gun down!" he snapped. "Marcus, I mean it!"

"B-but—"

"You put that gun down, or we all die!" Severus said. "Drop it, now!"

You could almost hear the bitter reluctance in the dull thud of an item hitting the floor off in the hallway.

"You've got about a dozen men heading into the treeline to the north, and a dozen more doing the same to the south," Nephrite continued. "Severus, right? You're the oldest son?" Nephrite poked his gun over towards the old man's face by the hall. "That's the boss?"

Neither of them said anything, just staring down Nephrite through his black, skin tight mask.

"Well, your men are out there chasing nothing. They are, however, standing in the explosion radius of a series of powerful bombs. I push a button, they all die. Or, we can do things differently. Electronics should be coming back on any moment now, including communications. So, you get on the horn, tell them to drop their weapons and head over to the warehouse about seventy paces that way." Nephrite pointed off towards his right. "Tell them to go there and surrender."

"That was one of my brothers you killed," Severus mumbled, looking ruefully over at the back door that the three masked men had just stormed in through.

"The perils of a family business," Nephrite replied simply. "Now, what will it be?"

Severus grimaced, clearly itching to take revenge for the death of his brother. After a couple beats, however, he slowly reached up to his earpiece, tapping it and hearing it crackle to life.

"Um...everyone. Message to everyone on the compound. Repeat, everyone. Drop your weapons, report to Warehouse B, and surrender yourself. This is not a drill, leave your weapons, report to Warehouse B, and surrender yourself." He dropped his hand to his side.

"Good decision," Nephrite applauded. "Now, I have eyes on your men out there, and if they decide to disobey, we'll know. And that'll be a problem for all of us."

"Nobody's disobeying," Severus said under his breath, just barely loud enough to be heard.

"Now, we're all going to take a nice walk. Warehouse B. And once everyone is in there, all nice and accounted for, we can discuss business." Nephrite took a couple large steps to the side, gesturing over towards the back door.

"

Endymion used the sharp sword to split the modesty-sized wooden stick in half, slowly driving the blade through the branch, length-wise. Serenity watched, sitting back on the reclined chair, glancing around the expansive garden, almost as if she felt as if the two were doing something untoward that she didn't want anyone else to see.

"Okay, so...the branch needs to be dry," Endymion explained, running his fingers along the inside of the branch after fully splitting it into two pieces. He discarded one of the halves to the side, then held up the other one. "Alright, feels good to me. And this half, what we need to do is carve it out a bit. The inside, we need to make a little groove." He reached over to the ground to his left, picking up a small metal knife, and began to run the sharp end along the inside of the wood, carving a groove into it.

The two were sitting outside the palace, out in an open dirt patch of the royal garden, Serenity having found a simple chaise-style chair to sit back and witness Endymion's attempts to create a fire as men had to many thousands of years ago. It seemed rather silly, given it was a perfectly beautiful day and a fire was the last thing either of them needed, but she needed this little test if she was going to actually convince herself to believe Endymion's explanation for recent events.

"Now, the key to creating this fire is friction," Endymion explained as he dug the small pocket knife into the branch. "Two objects rubbing up against each other at high speeds, creates friction. This friction can be used to generate fire." He looked down at a clump of dried leaves in front of him on the ground. "These are kindling." He poked at a pile of twigs right next to the leaves. "And this will be where the fire gets started after the kindling catches. But, we need the spark, or else none of it does us any good."

He placed the carved branch down into the ground, pushing it slightly into the dirt with a firm shove. He then grabbed another, similar branch from behind him.

"So now we have one of the two surfaces we'll use to make friction," Endymion continued, Serenity genuinely interested as he began to shave off pieces of wood from the tip of the branch. "This branch will be the second one. I'm going to make the end of it pointy and flat. So it'll fit into the groove I just carved in the first branch."

With a few swipes of his knife, he soon had fashioned a rough spear, an end that looked threatening enough to at least pass for one in the hands of one skilled enough. He pointed the business end down into the groove on the branch, testing it by moving it back and forth within the gap.

"Now, this might take a little while," the Prince said, getting down on his knees, pressing the end of the carved branch under his right knee to keep it from moving. "But, eventually, I'll be able to create the spark that we need using just these two branches."

"I have nowhere I need to be," Serenity said, putting her arms down at her sides as Endymion pressed the tip of the stick into the groove. "Let's see it."

Endymion gave a terse nod, and then began quickly running the pointy end of the stick back and forth, arms pumping forward and backward as he worked to create the necessary friction.

"

The warehouse was largely filled by various vehicle parts, disassembled speeders and motorcycles laying around in organized stacks. A few oil and fluid stains spread out along the grey concrete floor, no doubt contributing to the significant synthetic stench of the large chamber. There were also several collections of giant red and white barrels against the walls, as well as a wide variety of equipment that a vehicle mechanic might find themselves in need of.

For the moment, however, the warehouse served a different purpose. The center portion had been cleared out, with nearly forty people crowded together tightly. They were all sitting on the floor, cross-legged, hands interlocked behind their heads. Nephrite, Cassius, and Rufus, all still wearing masks and now bearing assault rifles, were standing along the outer edge of them, keeping a vigilant watch for any potential wrongdoing.

Kunzite entered the warehouse from the front entrance, sliding the steel door shut behind him, drawing the attention of all forty individuals within. He looked over the scene, surmising how controlled the situation was.

"You going to tell us what this is about?" An elderly woman in the middle of the sea of prisoners finally said, twisting her head around to look at the armed Nephrite.

"I think we both know the answer to that," Nephrite replied. "Who are you?"

"For your purposes, I'm the one in charge," she replied. "The name's Maxima. Tatius is my husband. But it's not in his nature to negotiate with people who point guns at him, no matter what."

The old man who served as the head of The Bloody Spears gave an audible grumble.

"So, if you want something, it's me you'll be asking," Maxima finished.

"You stole something from us," Kunzite said, coming up to the outer edge of the circle of prisoners and stopping. "Your syndicate took something that belonged to us. The only fair way to respond to that in my book is to take something that belongs to you."

"You've already taken one of my sons," Maxima pointed out gloomily. "Of course, nothing I'm not used to. My firstborn was a girl. Fell off the roof of a three-story building, cracked her head open. I had a son who ran away, tried to make a fortune working as a soldier of fortune in the civil war on Saturn. Had half his head blown off by a sniper."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that," Kunzite said briskly. "But this is business. And it's bad business to let someone rob you without a powerful response."

"I'll be honest with you," Nephrite chimed in. "Our plan was to just round everyone up and start breaking bones until we got what we wanted. But, given that we've already got two corpses, which I think makes the degree of our seriousness evident, we can just skip to the part where you start handing over something to make this raid worth our time."

Maxima sighed. "A deal is always better than a massacre. Can I stand up?"

Kunzite nodded, gesturing for her to rise. She slowly did, shakily getting to her feet.

"Let my husband get up too. Put him in a chair. It's bad for his knees to be sitting on the floor at his age." She looked down to her right. "Marcus, too. He's got the palsy, sitting like this chokes the blood flow into his legs. You let them go sit in chairs, and I'll lead one of you back to the house. We're not stupid enough to keep the imperium on the compound, of course, but I'll make you whole."

Kunzite and Nephrite glanced over at each other for a brief moment. Kunzite nodded.

"Alright, Maxima, you're coming with me," Kunzite said, waving her over. "I've got a communication channel open with my buddies here, meaning they can hear everything I say. If, for any reason, our line of communication were to be cut off, or I stop giving status updates, the body count starts going up." He pointed over at Rufus. "Let the old man and the cripple sit on chairs, but keep them together and make sure they stay where you put them."

Maxima delicately stepped through the tightly-compacted group of people sitting on the floor.

He then looked over to Cassius. "You get two volunteers and lead them around the warehouse. Get them stripping the power modules out of the engine blocks, I see at least fifteen of them in here. Imperium converters too." He watched as Maxima got out of the prisoner circle. "By the time we're done here, you'll have learned a valuable lesson about trifling with us."

"

Endymion was starting to sweat noticeably as he violently rubbed the two pieces of wood together, arms churning. The continued friction was causing distinct wisps of smoke to plume up from the makeshift firestarter.

Serenity just watched, eyes on the dark smoke rise up through the air, nose twitching slightly as she detected the distinct odor from the branches.

"Almost there!" Endymion grunted, giving his head a little shake, sending flecks of sweat in either direction.

"Your Highness, what are you doing?"

Serenity looked up, twisting her head around, finding a short, brown-haired woman standing there carrying a basket in her right hand and a short shovel in the other. She had a befuddled expression, eyes on the Prince cranking the stick back and forth.

"He's starting a fire!" Serenity explained, turning back to watch the building smoke plumes.

The woman opened her mouth to say something, but after a couple of beats, simply closed her mouth and turned around to walk off.

"

Marcus, sitting by a long steel counter against the eastern wall of the warehouse, in a wheeled spinning chair next to his father, stared over at Rufus. The masked man was keeping close tabs on both him and his father, leaving them little opportunity to do anything to try to turn the situation in their favor. Meanwhile, Cassius was off on the other side of the warehouse, pointing his plasma rifle at two of The Bloody Spears underlings, as they rifled through stacks of speeder engine blocks, unscrewing and removing various small components that provided a good weight-to-value ratio. Nephrite continued to babysit the thirty prisoners still sitting in the circle, his rapid-fire plasma rifle more than enough to encourage them all to stay in line.

The crippled son of the syndicate's patriarch stared down Rufus, eyes on the large firearm in his hands. "D-did you...d-did you s-s-s-shoot my brother?" he asked, trying to sound as intimidating as he could given his chronic stutter.

"No clue," Rufus growled back. "You people all look the same to me."

Marcus pushed a powerful breath out of his nostrils, then glanced down underneath the counter to his left at a brown cardboard package.

Suddenly, the front door to the warehouse slammed open, Maxima entering with Kunzite right behind him. Kunzite had a brown burlap sack slung over his shoulders.

"Be grateful to this woman right here," Kunzite said, dropping his shoulder and letting the bag strap fall into his hand. He walked over to the pile of speeder components, dropping the burlap to the floor. "Her cooperation with me has ensured all of you live."

The two prisoners who had been pressed into farming the valuable engine pieces, reading the gestures of Cassius, opened up the mouth of the bag and began placing the modules and converters inside.

"Now we'll be getting out of here," Kunzite stated, jerking his head towards the main door, getting Rufus to start slowly backing over towards the exit while keeping his firearm at the ready. Nephrite began to do the same. "If you're feeling really sore about all this, you can try to chase us, I suppose. But it's better for all of you if you just accept your losses today as a tough lesson and move on. You don't want us to come back."

After the bag was loaded to capacity, Kunzite quickly reached down to jerk it up over his shoulder. He and Cassius slowly moved towards the front door as well, keeping weapons trained on the thirty-ish seated prisoners.

"We won't chase," Maxima assured him. "I can only assume you've got the whole compound rigged to blow if we do."

Kunzite brought the second strap of the sack onto his other shoulder to balance the load. "And I can only assume you've learned what happens when you rob us?"

"BASTARDS!"

All four masked men turned over to the right side of the chamber, where the temporarily-ignored Marcus was now holding a large plasma rifle, cardboard box opened at his feet. With his one good hand holding the grip and the butt end roughly pressed into his chest, he was reaching forward with his shrunken, twisted hand, trying to grab the lever on the barrel and yank it back. The appendage, however, was entirely inadequate for such, and took a few beats just to reach forward enough to grab it.

"NO!"

Several of the prisoners yelled in an unsynchronized, cacophonous chorus as the crippled son of the family tried to prime the weapon that he was in no condition to use. In truth, given his handicap, he was unlikely to actually be able to fire an accurate shot if given a hundred chances. But Nephrite, operating on muscle memory, fired off three plasma bolts at Marcus's chest, catching him full in the middle and burning a hole right through his center.

However, this was enough to get his disabled arm to yank back on the lever, successfully priming the weapon, and as his body spun to his right from the impact of the bolts, his hand clenched down on the trigger. Several white projectiles launched from the tip of the barrel, wildly flying upward.

Several of the wild shots struck a row of barrels up on a catwalk near the ceiling of the warehouse. The physical force of the strikes were enough to penetrate the steel, blowing large holes in the containers, causing a red liquid to spill out. Furthermore, the heated plasma also served to ignite the fluid as it poured out. The several hundred congiis of liquid erupted in a massive flood of fire, rapidly expanding as it fell down to the ground floor of the warehouse.

"Aw, shit," Nephrite managed to mutter, before the four masked men spun around and sprinted out of the front entrance, getting outside just as the wave of flame crashed down on the circle of sitting prisoners.

The quartet booted it across the grassy flatland, all of them able to feel the tremendous heat on their backs as the warehouse was consumed by an angry fire. Only after they got ten kalamos away did they turn around, able to watch as the large grey structure began to emit copious amounts of smoke.

"God damnit!" Kunzite huffed, unable to hide the shock and concern from his face as he watched the outer walls of the building began to warp and crumble.

"We need to get out of here!" Cassius shouted.

"Fire crews will probably come in from the west!" Nephrite reasoned. "East!" The Earth general took off in the indicated direction, quickly followed by the other three, as the licking flames from within the warehouse began to consume the entire structure, massive clouds of smog rising into the air.

"

Endymion dumped the charred black wood particles that had built up at the end of the grooved branch from all of his rubbing on the pile of dried leaves. He bent down and began gently blowing on the smoking little bundle of debris.

"Just keep the air flowing," he said as the black wood particles began to glow red, a tiny spark bundled up within the leaves. And then, suddenly, the entire pile ignited into a blooming flame.

"Ah!" Serenity yelped, jumping a bit as the leaves suddenly lit in a heated flame. Endymion quickly piled the twigs on top of the burgeoning fire, stoking it to continue growing.

"There it is!" Endymion said, relieved as the twigs began to catch fire as well. "So at this point, you would just get progressively bigger sticks and keep stacking them as the fire grows, and you'd eventually have a full-blown bonfire."

"That's pretty cool, actually," Serenity marveled as the little flame grew as it found more fuel to build itself.

"That's not the only way to make a fire from scratch," Endymion said, panting a bit as he got back to his feet. He bent over to brush off his knees of dirt. "But that's my favorite."

Serenity nodded, and then gave a sad little frown. "I...I'm sorry," she muttered.

"Hm?" Endymion turned to look over at his wife.

"I'm sorry about...you know, lately," she said, looking down at her knees, still frowning. "It was just hard to swallow, and I just couldn't quite bring myself to believe it, but, well, I guess there are just some things I don't understand. I'm sorry I've been difficult lately."

Endymion began to kick dirt over the small fire, splashing the brown soil over it to extinguish it. After piling a sufficient amount on top of the flames, he stomped his foot down on top of it, making sure there was no smouldering ember remaining to possibly spark to life later.

"I understand," Endymion said, stepping over next to her and reaching his right hand down towards her. She took it, letting him pull her into a standing position. "I get it, trust me."

She leaned over towards Endymion, going up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the chin. "Alright. Early dinner?"

The young couple quickly crossed over the couple steps to get off the dirt patch and onto the concrete path, the only traces of their little outdoor project a few traces of smoke trailing up into the skies.

"

Kunzite and Nephrite looked up through the tree canopy behind them, able to make out a massive pillar of smoke between branches. Behind them, Cassius and Rufus had their hands on their knees, panting profusely, as the long distance sprinting they had just engaged in to get far away from the burning warehouse had taken quite a bit of the energy out of them.

"Literally. Literally ten beats away from a perfect, clean getaway," Nephrite muttered darkly.

"Well, we still have that," Kunzite reasoned. "No evidence that we were there, nothing that can lead back to us. It'll just look like a rival gang hit, or maybe a fluke accident." He scowled. "Not what we needed, though."

Kunzite reached down to his belt, pulling out a small disc and glancing at it. It was vibrating in his fingers.

"You two," Kunzite announced, drawing the attention of Cassius and Rufus. "Stay here and catch your breath, me and Nephrite are going to run ahead and take this call."

The two of them nodded, grateful for any excuse to stop running for a bit. The two generals jogged up ahead, getting a healthy distance away, moving between trees before Kunzite stopped.

"It's the Prince," Kunzite said, tapping the center of the disc, then spinning the outer edge counter-clockwise a bit before lifting it up to his ear. "Yes?"

"Hey, Kunzite, how's it going?"

"Umm…" Kunzite glanced up behind him at the billowing smoke pillar, just barely able to make it out between the leaves of the branches high above his head.

"L-look, buddy," Endymion suddenly said without getting a response.

"

"I wanted to apologize to you," Endymion said, standing up on the balcony right outside his bedroom, looking through the glass doors back into his room, where Serenity was entering the bathing chamber. "For this morning. I'll apologize to Nephrite and Zoisite as well, when I get the chance, I...you guys are doing fantastic. Really, all of you. Thank you so much."

"W-well, Nephrite's actually standing right here with me," Kunzite's voice hummed through the disc-shaped communicator in Endymion's right hand.

"Oh, well then, Nephrite, great work," Endymion said, an easy smile on his face as he walked over to the handrail going around the outer edge of the balcony. "You're really doing fantastic. Oh, and...the thing we talked about this morning? The thing I told you to handle? Just forget it."

"

Kunzite and Nephrite both blinked blankly a few times, staring wide-eyed at the small disc in Kunzite's hand.

"Did you guys catch that? You guys hear me?"

"W-what?" Kunzite asked. "What was that?"

"I had a chance to calm down, and you guys...you were right, it's not a big deal. Don't worry about it, just let it go," Endymion reiterated. "Sorry I made such a big deal about it. You guys are doing amazing, let's not make a big deal out of a minor thing."

Kunzite slowly twisted his head back around again, again bearing witness to the massive smoke cloud rising up in the atmosphere. He then looked down to Nephrite, who could only return his wide-eyed stare.

"You there?" Endymion asked.

"We...we need to meet. Soon," Kunzite said. He tapped the center of the disc and dropped it back to his belt. "Let's get out of here," he gasped.