Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1.
"My friends, we have a problem." Phillipe Loren set down at his desk, flanked on either side by the DeWynter Sisters, as he looked at the two men in front of him. "The Syndicate is about to go to war."
"WHAT!"
"Finally, I thought you we're getting soft old man."
Two very different reactions but both were something the man expected as he held a hand up, one of the DeWynter's, Kiki, handing him a folder that he opened rather slowly as he began talking.
"Several hours ago, I extended an offer to the primary leader of the Saints and two of his lieutenants. He did not agree to put it lightly." The meaning behind his words was clear as Loren's new accessory, his eyepatch, was not lost to any member of the Syndicate and the masked man could only laugh.
"Looks like you got bit by that "mad dog" you said you could beat." The masked man drew a cold stare from the Belgian as he laughed, silencing him as he continued looking through the folder.
"I would suggest that none of you speak until I finish." Loren dropped another photo onto the table, showing the leader of the Saints gunning down his men in the cockpit with a smirk on his face. "Kiki, play the recording."
"Of course." Kiki pulled out her phone, in seconds the room darkened and a screen on the wall across from them turned on with a still image on it, when the three Saints were first brought onto the plane.
"Where the fuck are we!" The man known only as the Boss looked around the room once the bag had been removed from his head, spotting the two Morningstar thugs holding him upright with his lieutenants getting the same treatment. "Are we on a plane? Who the fuck has the balls to drag me here?"
"You are correct in guessing you are on a plane, my plane to be precise and I am responsible for bringing you here after you robbed MY bank." Loren stood in front of the three, flanked on either side by the DeWynter sisters and the Boss seemed to merely look at him for a second before laughing.
"Yeah, go fuck yourself!" The Boss ignored the rifles aimed at him, his laughter only dying down when he turned to his second in command, Johnny Gat and nodded his head towards Loren. "Hey Gat, you know this motherfucker?"
"I am Phillipe Loren and thankfully for you, I am here mostly for business and not retribution after what you did." Loren walked up to the Boss, the Saint merely smirking as the two locked eyes. "I wish to make a deal with Ultor, you have placed the board in your hands so I must go through you instead it seems."
"Is that right?" The Boss only laughed again, drawing a glare from Viola who met the eye of one of the two holding him up. He was immediately forced to the floor, his laughter never stopping even as a gun was held to his head until a look from Loren stopped him.
"Enough, I need him alive to talk." Loren turned away from the two Morningstar and back to the Boss, the man still finding some humor in his situation even if his laughter had died down into chuckles. "I will let you live when you sign over your shares of Ultor to myself. If you refuse, you will be killed along with your lieutenants." Loren stopped in front of the kneeling Boss, the Saint no longer laughing. "I believe the answer is simple even for someone like you."
"And what do you think my answer is going to be Frenchie?" The Boss didn't lose his smirk, even when Loren cuffed him on the side of the head. "Oh, I guess you already know then?"
"Yo Boss, how about we give him a more clear answer?" The Boss's smirk only widened into an insane grin at Gat's words, the Saint quickly getting rid of his two guards with a head-butt to one and the other crumpled when he fell back onto him, the chair breaking apart when the two men hit the ground. The Boss merely leaned his head back, the Morningstar firing his gun missing and instead only hitting one of the men holding Shaundi in the leg. The unexpected gunshot wound made him collapse before she had wrapped her hands around the neck of the other and used the chain linking her wrist to drag them in front of her just as one of the Morningstar in front of her opened fire with his rifle.
Gat had already freed himself by the time this happened, snapping the chains on his wrist and drawing the gun one of his guards kept in his jacket.
"Thanks." Gat grinned as he pulled the trigger, putting a round between his eyes as he rose back to his feet.
"Kill them yo-" Loren was cut off when the Boss was on his feet, wrapping his hands around his throat with a truly psychotic grin on his face, his eyes holding nothing but pure rage.
He was saying something to the leader of the Syndicate but the mic couldn't pick it up with everything else happening.
"As you can see, he did not accept my offer, as I expected of him, and he ordered his lieutenants, Johnny Gat and Shaundi, to leave. By the end of their escape, I lost one of my personal aircrafts but our new foe lost much more than me."
"Did you kill him?"
"Shooting someone in the head is likely to do that Mr. Pryor. In addition to those of my men he and his Lieutenants managed to kill in their effort to escape, most of the cargo the aircraft was carrying was sucked out of the doors thanks to the blast he caused."
"B-Blast? What blast? You said h-he caused it too?"
"Yes. He carried some type of explosive with him and, in the resulting chaos he caused, the two Saints with him escaped. My men have confirmed sightings of his Lieutenants in the city. They've recently escaped a team I dispatched to kill them and are no doubt regrouping with more of their gang." Loren sighed as he placed the folder down, a picture of Johnny Gat and Shaundi in Steelport the main thing to see. "In addition…"
Loren merely gestured to a screen at the wall. One of the DeWynter sisters drew out a remote and turned it on. A still image of the ruined SNG armory dominated it with the frozen image of a reporter present. The headline: 3rd Street Saints Publicity Stunt Spirals Out of Control, Nearly A Hundred Steelport National Guard Dead.
"…they have clearly made their presence known to us all. The SNG was a valuable ally and, more importantly, their depot was a good holding place for much of the arms we deal in. This will cause a minor setback in many of our shipments."
"So, they think they can bring down the Syndicate?" The masked man only laughed as he walked up to the desk. "Give me a few days and I'll have this problem cleaned up, they'll be dead and Stillwater will be in the hands of the Syndicate."
"You lack finesse Mr. Pryor, this "Boss" of theirs may be dead but the Saints are not some run of the mill gang, they are not some trash you can kill simply by throwing your brutes at them. We have an experienced force, an organization that has gone to war twice before and emerged victorious, rising to dominance in both cases. Their leader may be dead but his second in command is known to be as formidable as an army by himself. There is no telling who else is in their ranks. With the weapons they no doubt have access to thanks to their ties to Ultor? I am not interested in crippling the Syndicate simply because of lack of manpower, we lose even when we win that way and I will not have some pyrrhic victory on my hands." Loren turned around to look out across Steelport, look out at his city. "Already we have been dealt a heavy blow, several of my good friends in the SNG will be quite busy for much too long because of the Saints' attack on the armory. I can now no longer reach the weapon shipments I have stored there free of charge, if they weren't already stolen by the Saints. Your Luchadores are of no use to us without the heavy weaponry I supplied, weapons I cannot spare lightly if we are to follow what you wish in an all-out war for both cities."
"M-Mr. Loren, maybe I can be of some assistance?" Miller stepped forward, Killbane briefly glaring at the techno-goth that had the nerve to stand next to him, as if they were equals. "I-I've recently been looking into several different firearms companies, if need be, I can move several shipments to Steelport and the Luchadores can take any weapons they need from them."
Loren merely looked at the hacker before a small grin came onto his face. It terrified the Decker leader even more and not even the masked man could say he did not feel a tinge of fear shoot through him at the sight of such a thing. That grin only spoke of destruction to them all.
"You will do well to speak with the DeWynters after this meeting Mr. Miller, they will be handling such business while I oversee several personal projects." Loren looked each of his "partners" in the eyes, one after the other with the message clear. "Make no mistake gentlemen, I have won wars like this before and I intend to do the same again. I do not ask for obedience from you, I expect absolute loyalty. If the Syndicate is to deal with the Saints, we must be a single unit against them, not individuals."
"Just don't waste my time Loren." Killbane turned, intentionally shoving the smaller Miller to the floor with a look of disgust clear even with his face concealed by his mask. "Call me when you finally grow some balls and want them dead. I won't waste my time with this shit."
"I-I'll contact you soon." Matt was quickly on his feet, working on something on the tablet on his arm and almost running out of the room. "J-Just call me when you want to talk!"
"Don't go far Mr. Miller, the DeWynter sisters will be with you momentarily." Loren's voice brought a hasty reply from the hacker as he hurried through the doors.
The room was silent for a moment before Loren stepped over to the large windows in his office, looking out over the city he had broken down and rebuilt across several decades. Steelport was HIS city and now someone was going to wage war on it.
"Kiki, Viola, how is the project coming along?"
"We're looking to test the first wave within several days, maybe a week."
"Change of plans, push my meetings scheduled for the next few days, invent some reason. Make the first demonstration tomorrow. I will find your testing grounds." There was no more time for delays. His once side project would quickly be receiving much more funding to speed it along. He needed a powerful equalizer in this war against the Saints and he knew exactly what it would be.
And where exactly he would reveal them at.
"W-We'll reschedule tomorrow's meetings." If either of them were nervous about tomorrow's newly scheduled testing, they didn't show it. They focused on the more immediate problems, both mentally going over Loren's schedule for the next few days.
It would need to be reorganized to take into account him wanting to be there. And for everything that came after. It wasn't hard to see a war coming when they had been through one before. Morningstar didn't just suddenly become the dominant power in Steelport, didn't just become the dominant guiding force in the Syndicate, and Phillipe Loren didn't just become the head of three separate gangs.
Morningstar went to war and won it to get here. The Saints had no idea who they were fighting.
"Good."
The DeWynters took his reply as a dismissal, leaving the suddenly suffocating room and coming across Matt Miller. He was pacing back and forth in the foyer, his focus on his tablet and was trying to force down his own nerves at what was happening.
"This is fucking unbelievable…A gang war with the Saints…Oh God I need more security now…No, they can't touch me...Fuck!...They're maniacs…" He was speaking quietly to himself, the two picking up every other sentence as the growing nervous wreck that was Matt Miller was slowly spiraling further and further in his panic.
It was understandable panic as they were fighting the Saints now but it was still unnecessary. And it was simply unprofessional to have a mental breakdown out in the open like this. He could at least wait until he had barricaded himself in a soundproof room or something.
They were at least that professional.
'Fucking bitch.' The two could tell the other was thinking the same when they walked up to Miller. He was still panicking, probably on the verge of hyperventilating if they let him keep at it.
"Mr. Miller." Kiki snapped her fingers in front of his face, the boy jumping at the sudden noise. She didn't have much pity for him.
"A-Ah, Ms. DeWynter and Ms. DeWynter, is this is about the latest shipment of guns for Mr. Loren?" Miller at least tried to get himself under control, crossing his arms and gripping his biceps so tightly he was sure he would be dealing with bruises later. It was better than dealing with his shaking at least.
"Yes." Viola answered. "We'll be in contact with you about where to send the shipments and what hardware we'll be expecting in them. In your free time, you'll be responsible for research. We've already done our own but you have more resources and more experience getting to the files we couldn't. Keep it quiet but Mr. Loren expects as much information as possible on his desk by tomorrow morning."
"O-Of course." Matt managed a nod. He was more familiar in this territory. His shaking was under control, controlled by his mind hastily focusing everything on the new task before him. Cyberspace was his domain after all. He was a God there, untouchable, all powerful. He could work with this. He could work quite well with this. He could work amazingly well with this. "Did he have anything on him that might help? Any credit cards? His phone, if it managed to live through all the fighting, would be especially helpful."
"You're lucky then. He only had his phone on him. Morningstar techs collected a large amount of data and none of it is useful to us from a profit standpoint. The only thing we learned was that the Saints/Ultor Media Group was several times bigger than we originally thought, enough so that it can no longer be restricted to the media branch. We're sure it's the center of the entirety of the global Ultor conglomerate. It rivals several branches of the Syndicate in raw influence in certain areas and we've discovered the Saints have developed ties with the Japanese Ronin and Columbian drug lords that are the primary suppliers of both the Syndicates and Saint's drugs to name only two. The rest are mainly inconsequential, various small time operations funded on a whim by their leader. The problem you need to look into is the growing private military presence of the Ultor Security Unit codenamed Masako. We have no fucking idea who they are, how many they are, and what they do. Find out." Viola listed off what they had already gotten from the phone while Kiki handed it off to Miller, shoving it into his arms. He scrambled to stop it from falling as it slipped from his fingers time and time again and barely managed that.
"T-Thank you. This will be very helpful." Miller didn't stay any longer, turning away even as he spoke. He was a little below flat out running from the two as he rushed off with the phone cradled in his arms to his personal high speed elevator in the tower and, more importantly, the armed Deckers waiting inside. The sooner he could get out of a much less Decker controlled part of the city and back to Burns Hill, the better.
"Don't fuck this up Miller." Kiki and Viola spoke together as they called out to him. Matt made some noise of his agreement to their demand before quickly stepping into the elevator and closing the doors behind him. He didn't exactly hide his sigh of relief before the doors were fully shut.
Silence passed between the two sisters before they looked to each other.
"Kensington would have been better than him."
"She would have been more fun at least."
"We could always let her go."
"And deal with that mouth on her?"
"True. But we could put it to better use."
"Maybe. If Miller fucks this up, we'll get rid of him."
As Matt Miller descended down to the garage, Killbane stalked towards his limousine, his fists bloody after he had beaten half his escort to death on the elevator ride down. The rest stayed a healthy distance away, far away in truth, from their psychotic, and currently enraged, boss.
"That fucking old man!" Killbane nearly tore the door off when he reached his ride, slamming it close hard enough to dent it. "I'll fucking kill him!"
The use of his name, not the moniker he had earned for himself in the ring and outside it: Killbane, had enraged the masked man. His already hair trigger temper thanks to his humiliation in Stillwater by Washington in the club was still fresh on his mind and only fueled his current state of anger. It would be a miracle if he didn't kill anyone else in the short trip back to the Three Count Casino.
It was unlucky for whoever was scheduled to be in a match with him tonight. He was going to tear them apart. Literally. He would do it quickly if they were lucky.
If they weren't, if they had to feel the full force of his anger, if they had to be the target for him to tear apart after dealing with Loren's sheer disrespect for him? Well, Murderbrawl may just air its first actually censored episode. The network, no matter how much money the Syndicate was stuffing them with, wouldn't allow live dismemberment.
It had to be Pay-Per-View to get away with that kind of show.
The Deckers that awaited Matt Miller in the garage kept a good distance between them and the Luchadores as they began to move out, the security Killbane had brought with him piling intro trucks and speeding off after the armored up limo carrying their enraged boss. A few flipped off the Deckers, others seemed almost tempted to attack before they were pulled away by another. They all kept their distance, nearly opened fire when they drew a bit too close.
Miller stepped out of his elevator a second after the last vehicle had pulled out and was talking in terms only Deckers would understand as he walked to his car.
He had work to do back at Burns Hill and it was work he excelled in.
It was only another plus that Burns Hill but not only very thick concrete walls but the best of the Deckers put between him and that maniac Killbane.
AN: To be honest, Miller was kind of fun to write. He is completely terrified about what's about to happen. With good reason.